Owen Farrell will start at fly-half in a reshuffled England line-up to face South Africa at Twickenham on Saturday. There are seven changes in addition to Farrell’s positional switch from inside centre from England’s last outing against the Springboks in Cape Town in June.
It is only the third time Farrell has been handed the England No 10 jersey since the 2015 Rugby World Cup, with George Ford dropping to the bench. Eddie Jones has also recalled the fit-again Ben Te’o in midfield alongside Henry Slade, despite the fact the Worcester centre has played just 28 minutes of rugby since May.
Manu Tuilagi has to be content with a place among the replacements but is set to feature in a Test for the first time since 2016. There is no place in the 23, however, for Chris Ashton who has lost out to Jack Nowell on the wing.
Up front there are also starting berths for Newcastle’s Mark Wilson and Wasps’ Brad Shields in a back-row containing a total of 10 caps. Alec Hepburn and Kyle Sinckler start in the front-row with two uncapped players, Exeter’s Ben Moon and Bath’s Zach Mercer, poised for debuts off the bench.
England, missing the injured Vunipola brothers, Chris Robshaw, Joe Launchbury, Courtney Lawes and the retired Joe Marler among others, have won one of their last six Tests and were beaten 2-1 by the Springboks in their summer series.
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“We’ve become very well organised in our set-piece and have done a lot of good work in Portugal over the last week,” said Jones. “We have put in a new defence system and our attack looks more organised than it was on the South Africa tour.
“Against South Africa you have got the physical battle up front and then you have to be tactically smart in how you attack against them. We need to find ways to gain momentum, then once we find momentum, convert that to points. We are really excited to be back at Twickenham Stadium. It’s been a long time and we can’t wait to play in front of 82,000 fans.”
Quick guide
England team to face South Africa
England: Daly (Wasps); Nowell (Exeter), Slade (Exeter), Te’o (Worcester), May (Leicester); Farrell (Saracens co-capt), Youngs (Leicester); Hepburn (Exeter), Hartley (Northampton, co-capt), Sinckler (Harlequins), Itoje (Saracens), Kruis (Saracens), B Shields (Wasps), T Curry (Sale), Wilson (Newcastle).
Replacements: George (Saracens), Moon (Exeter), Williams (Exeter), Ewels (Bath), Z Mercer (Bath), Care (Harlequins), Ford (Leicester), Tuilagi (Leicester).