England are determined to make the best of things against New Zealand in Saturday’s first Test but Stuart Lancaster is having no luck at the moment. His rejigged XV to face the All Blacks already contains just seven players who kicked off the final game of the Six Nations in Rome and that number could yet shrink to six if Danny Care fails to recover from an untimely shoulder injury he has sustained in training.
Care took a heavy tumble on the training paddock on Monday and is far from a certain starter at Eden Park, with Ben Youngs standing by to replace him and Lee Dickson, who played 50 minutes of the Premiership final at Twickenham only last Saturday, potentially required on the bench.
“Danny Care is a concern,” admitted Lancaster. “He fell awkwardly in training on Monday and I’ll give him until the captain’s run on Friday. At the moment we’re hoping he’ll be fine, but it’s meant I’ve had to put Lee Dickson on standby and Ben Youngs will start if he is out.”
Given Care supplies 47 of the 299 caps contained within England’s chosen XV his loss would be another sizeable blow to Lancaster’s already stretched resources. Billy Twelvetrees, as expected, has already been ruled out at inside-centre, ensuring Manu Tuilagi and Bath’s Kyle Eastmond will form an untried midfield partnership outside Freddie Burns, who has been given the nod to start at fly-half ahead of Danny Cipriani.
There are also recalls up front for James Haskell, Geoff Parling and Rob Webber, as Lancaster attempts to paper over the cracks caused by the non-availability of more than a dozen players involved in last Saturday’s Premiership final. Twelve of the 23-man squad have 10 caps or fewer, with the Harlequins hooker Joe Gray and the Worcester full-back Chris Pennell awaiting their first taste of Test rugby.
Everything is relative in life and, compared with some of the skeleton crews England have sent out to represent them in the southern hemisphere over the past 16 years, this team is far from the worst. It will require a concerted effort, even so, to down the All Blacks with such influential players as Courtney Lawes, Dylan Hartley, Billy Vunipola, Owen Farrell and Luther Burrell sitting in the stand unable to participate, and George Ford, Tom Youngs, Dan Cole, Alex Corbisiero, Tom Croft, Jack Nowell and Christian Wade unavailable for the entire tour.
All Lancaster can do is cross his fingers and hope a durable pack exerts enough set-piece pressure to camouflage any possible defensive or goalkicking frailties. Parling has been picked ahead of Dave Attwood specifically for his lineout prowess, while Webber’s extra scrummaging bulk and Gray’s superior throwing have nudged Dave Ward out of the hooking equation for the time being.
The in-form Haskell, last seen in an England jersey in 2011, also offers some backrow physicality, but not all his team-mates have played much rugby lately. Eastmond, for example, has not featured for Bath since the end of April but Lancaster remains convinced the former rugby league man can make a decent fist of his looming collision with Ma’a Nonu.
“There’s nothing I’ve seen in training that has me lying awake worrying,” insisted Lancaster. “Kyle was exceptional on tour to Argentina last year and every time he’s trained with us we’ve seen huge potential in him. The partnership of him and Manu has been looking promising in training. We need to give Kyle the licence to do what he does best and put people through holes but also encourage him to take on players himself as he’s a genuine running and passing threat.”
There is also optimism that Burns, despite a modest club season, is regaining some of the confidence which deserted him this winter. “I’m not saying I would have chosen the situation but I can see the positives of working with a wider group of players and seeing who can and can’t,” confirmed Lancaster. “This series and the autumn internationals are really significant in the buildup to the World Cup. We’ve still got to deliver consistently at the highest level and play with intensity and tempo we demonstrated in the Six Nations. That’s very much the message I’ve given the players. You’ve got to go for it.
“When you are playing against a side as good as the All Blacks, with the record they’ve got at Eden Park in particular, you are only going to beat them if you believe you can do it.”
England (first Test team v New Zealand): Brown (Harlequins); Yarde (Harlequins), Tuilagi (Leicester), Eastmond (Bath), May (Gloucester); Burns (Leicester), Care (Harlequins) or B Youngs (Leicester); Marler (Harlequins), Webber (Bath), Wilson (Bath), Parling (Leicester), Launchbury (Wasps), Haskell (Wasps), Robshaw (Harlequins, capt), Morgan (Gloucester).
Replacements: Gray (Harlequins), Mullan (Wasps), Thomas (Bath), Attwood (Bath), Johnson (Exeter), B Youngs (Leicester) or Dickson (Northampton), Cipriani (Sale), Pennell (Worcester).
