England to make only minor 'tweaks' in push for Six Nations trophy
Tuesday 17 March 2015 06:24, UK
Stuart Lancaster is considering only minor changes to his team as England search for the right player formula to make a winning charge at the Six Nations trophy.
Replacement tight five forwards Tom Youngs and Geoff Parling, who appeared in the second half of Saturday's 25-13 victory over Scotland, are pressing hard for promotion to be part of the starting side that will face France on Saturday at Twickenham.
Lancaster will whittle down his extended training squad to a 23 on Tuesday night and is keen to keep changes to a minimum out of the belief England have improved with each match of the tournament.
Ireland and Wales are also competing in a threeway title battle.
In case of a tie at the top, the winner will be decided by try difference, but that has affected Lancaster’s squad decisions.
"We've used 29 players so far and that consistency of selection has helped, but there are certainly one or two people from the bench who are putting their hands up," Lancaster said.
"Geoff Parling and Tom Youngs did well. In fact the whole bench made an impact. Kieran Brookes was excellent.
"We've not made too many changes during the course of this championship because I think the team's been getting better.
We've not made too many changes during the course of this championship because I think the team's been getting better
"Our try scoring record (11) is almost double everyone else's. By and large we've got the right personnel.
"There might be one or two tweaks, but there won't be wholesale changes."
Wales will be the first of the title contenders to kick off - on a day of three staggered matches - when they face Italy in Rome.
Attention then turns to Edinburgh where Ireland will launch their attempt at defending their title.
The order of matches means England will then know exactly what they must do against France to win and end a sequence of three successive runners-up finishes, but Lancaster insists that their priority must simply be winning the game.
"The key decision-makers will be aware what the permutations are and they will make decisions as the game unfolds," Lancaster said.
"In terms of the scoreline, if we start obsessing about that then we're not going to win the game - that's the long and short of it.
"We want to get the crowd behind us. We want to play some decent rugby and we want to have a nice dry day.”
