Stuart Lancaster’s likely to turn to youngsters to fill Ben Foden’s gap
Northampton’s Foden injured his ankle at Bath a fortnight ago and Gloucester‘s Jonny May, Christian Wade, of Wasps, or London Irish flier Marland Yarde are in pole position to replace him.
Harlequins’ Ugo Monye and Gloucester’s James ‘Sinbad’ Simpson-Daniel may also feel they have a claim, but Lancaster has indicated age may count against them after playing down the chances of Simpson-Daniel, 30.
Lancaster told The Rugby Paper: “I coached James in the Churchill Cup and there’s no doubt he’s talented, but I’ve not had the conversation with him.
“When I took over I could see we had a squad that was past 30 and if we’d persisted with the same group we’d have ended up with an ageing squad and this huge void of players beneath them who haven’t got any caps or experience.
“So we made a decision to invest our time and effort in a lot of cases in a young group of players so that they could get opportunities; the likes of Jonny May, George Lowe, Christian Wade and Marland Yarde, lads who are coming through.
“You never say No to anyone, but those are lads we’re looking at.”
Meanwhile, Lancaster has thrown down the gauntlet to his England stars by stating that he wants as many as possible to earn selection for next year’s Lions tour to Australia.
Question marks have been raised over England’s paucity of truly world-class performers and Lancaster believes Warren Gatland‘s Lions selection will provide answers.
He said: “How do you define world-class? Top three in the world in your position is probably fair and we’ll get a good benchmark about how people see the quality of our side when the Lions side gets picked.
“To be fair to our lads, we’re a new group coming together. But now we’ve got this chance to kick on, so we see the Lions as a key component going into the autumn internationals and Six Nations.
“We’ll know by the end of the Six Nations how many players that we’ve got in the Home Unions’ world-class bracket and I want as many as possible on that plane to Australia because we’ve got lots of players with Lions potential.
“Dan Cole and Dylan Hartley have improved significantly over the last 12 months along with Chris Robshaw, while Manu Tuilagi is another and in the nines we’ve got Ben Youngs and Danny Care.
“In the back-three Chris Ashton and Ben Foden are developing, so we’ve got a good group there and there are young players who I think will come through also.
“The critical thing is to make sure we’ve got players operating at the highest level as soon as possible, because to win a World Cup you need some stardust.”
With England forwards coach Graham Rowntree looking likely to once more be seconded by the Lions, Lancaster confirmed that he would look to the Premiership for a replacement for next summer’s tour of Argentina.
Into that frame would come Northampton’s Dorian West, Toby Booth, of Bath, Worcester’s Nigel Redman and Alex Sanderson, of Saracens, all of whom have previous experience of working with the RFU.
Other options could include John Kingston, who has performed wonders at Harlequins, Leicester‘s Richard Cockerill or Rob Baxter, of Exeter.
“We’ve not had anything official over Rowntree yet, but I want to make sure I get the strongest coaching team possible to go to Argentina,” said Lancaster.
“There are a number of good Premiership coaches I think would be great for England and for the club-country relationship, so I’d view it as a positive.”
NEALE HARVEY
