Eddie wants extra Currys to keep England on the boil

EDDIE Jones has already marked the card of his young guns telling them to gain inspiration from Tom Curry as their journey to the 2023 World Cup starts this summer.

The England head coach will name his party for games against USA and Canada next week with 11 British & Irish Lions unavailable and a raft of senior players expected to be rested.

Those Tests, and an A game against Scotland, will give some youngsters a chance to muscle into the squad – just as Curry and Sam Underhill did four years ago.

Then the young back rowers were blooded on a short tour to Argentina and less than 30 months later were playing in a World Cup final in Japan.

Jones has already marked the card of the latest group of U20s when he, and assistants Matt Proudfoot and John Mitchell, dropped in on training as they prepared for the Six Nations later this month.

“We will use them as examples,” said Jones. “I coached the U20s at Bisham Abbey last week and as we stood in a circle at the end I said to them that there was a likelihood that one boy in this group could play in the World Cup in 2023. That's the reality.

“There is a great opportunity for them to not only play a Test but to own the shirt. Their opportunity is to come in, play really well and then the Lions boys have got to come back and play better than them to get in.

“That's what happened with Curry and Underhill. They moved players out of the back row and took their positions so there is that opportunity for this group of players.”

One player Jones is keeping tabs on is Curry's twin brother Ben, who has just come back for Sale after five months out with a shoulder injury.

Jones knows all about the 22-year-old having picked him for that Argentina tour in 2017 when he was ahead of his brother in the pecking order.

“He has had a difficult time, he has had a lot of injuries, “ said Jones. “It is a bit premature to say anything about him and it is difficult for twins. Historically twins rugby, one goes up quickly and tends to settle a little bit. It whether the that settles can find the fight to keep going. From what I saw against Bristol, and this is one game I am talking about, he has certainly got the fight to keep going. We will monitor his progress closely and see how we go.

“The funny thing is when we picked the first Test team for Argentina four years ago we picked Ben instead of Tom but Ben ended up getting injured. Since then he has had a terrible run so maybe it is his turn now to get a good run of games and we will see the best of him.

“There are a lot of good players and there are some good players at Sale. The young loosehead is doing well, Bevan Rodd. Raffi Quirke (scrum-half) is doing well and is still eligible for the U20s.

“We've had meetings where we've picked two squads, one for the training week and one for the tour – there is a whole raft of good players and there is going to be a lot of disappointed players.

“If we kept the squad we have now we would be too old for the World Cup. There is a certain profile of around 28 years of age for a World Cup-winning side so we have been bringing it down slowly over the last couple of years.

“Now we need to accelerate that because the more senior guys keep getting older, they don't get younger!”

While Jones and his staff continue to thrash out the final squads for the summer, he admits some of the one-sided rugby being served up in a nonrelegation season has not helped him make as many clear-cut decisions as he would have liked.

“It's a hindrance in terms of selection because the games cease to have the rigour and intensity that you need to see players perform under. That's not just Premiership. You can see that in all competitions when you get these blowouts with big scores when one side's not trying as much.

“So we have to weigh all of that up. Those games count for less merit points than some other games. You do see great games, Sale against Bristol was a really terrific game of rugby.”