Rugby World Cup: England coach Eddie Jones picks team to play Argentina – BBC Sport, BBC News

                    

                

                

George Ford is again at fly-half with captain Owen Farrell at inside center as England face Argentina looking to claim three World Cup wins in a row.

Saturday’s team is the same one that opened the tournament against Tonga, other than the inclusion of lock George Kruis in place of Courtney Lawes.

Scrum-half Ben Youngs will become the England men’s team’s third most capped player when he plays in his 92 nd game.

Head coach Eddie Jones said: “Argentina are always about the physical contest.”

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“They’ve got good players, they’ve got a reasonably settled way of playing. They enjoy World Cups more than the other major teams, because there’s such a pride and there’s such a passion.

“The challenge for us is to show the same level of intensity and passion at the start of the game.

Jones has opted for a second-row combination of Maro Itoje and Kruis allied to the youthful back row of Tom Curry, Sam Underhill and Billy Vunipola for a match Argentina hooker Agustin Creevy has predicted will be “like a war”.

Winger Jack Nowell and prop Mako Vunipola have been selected on the replacements’ bench for the first time in the tournament after recovering from long-term injuries, with late squad bolter Lewis Ludlam also getting the nod.

Joe Marler, who retired from England duty a year ago, is in the front row alongside Jamie George and Kyle Sinckler.

Elliot Daly, Jonny May and Anthony Watson are selected in the back three.

Jones was in emotional mood after the death this week of Jeff Sayle, the coach at Randwick in Sydney who first picked him for that famous club side and then nurtured him.

Sayle was coach of the great Randwick team in the 1980 s that also included David Campese, the Ella brothers and current Wallabies coach Michael Cheika.

Jones told BBC 5 Live: “I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for Jeff.

“He taught us that winning and losing is important, but the main thing is to love the game. You have to keep loving the game, and I think you’ve seen that at this World Cup.

“I think he would be so proud of the spirit of the game at the tournament.

“I can remember being a schoolboy, and he would drive up in his old Kingswood, which would always look like it needed a good clean and good polish.

“And he’d pull his socks up, because he’d be refereeing the game, and he’d always be late, and he’d shout, ‘How you going, boys?’

“I was coached by him, I worked with him at the licensing club for a while. He was just one of those guys who kept the club together. He gave his time to everyone.

“We visited him with England in 2016, and he made everyone feel at home. He was a great man. “

Defeat for Argentina would effectively end their World Cup campaign at the pool stage, four years after they marched all the way to the last four.

They have not beaten England since 2009 but their recent record in the tournament – two semi-finals and a quarter-final in the last three editions – is superior to that of their opponents.

England, meanwhile, know a win would put them into the last eight, with either Australia or Wales likely opponents in the quarter-finals.

“Argentina is a completely different team from others we have played so far in the pool stages,” said Jones, whose side have already defeated Tonga and the United States.

“This week it’s about getting our game right, our set-piece in a good place and making sure defensively we are organized and ready to find ways to score points against them.”

Analysis

Former England fly-half Paul Grayson

This is England’s starting team exactly as you would expect to see it at this stage of the tournament.

It’s the bench where there are some questions, with Mako Vunipola, Henry Slade and Jack Nowell returning from injury.

It strengthens the England 23, but there are slight question marks over all of those players’ fitness.

The question marks over England’s midfield seem to have been answered, and they’ve again gone with George Ford at 10 and Owen Farrell at 12.

If you want to play with those two, quick ball is a must, so they have gone with two fetchers at six and seven in Tom Curry and Sam Underhill.

It means England should be able to produce the quick ball that plays into the distribution skills of that Ford-Farrell axis.

Ultimately, this is Argentina’s World Cup. They have to win to have any say on whether they make the quarter-finals.

They have laid out their plan pretty early and Agustin Creevy has gone big in his pre-game chat with the whole ‘it is going to be a war’ thing.

In sporting terms, they are going to bring a physical edge and an emotional intensity to the game.

Hopefully, England will have coolness between the ears to ride that out and make the most of the ability they have in their team.

(Teams)

England: Daly; Watson, Tuilagi, Farrell, May; Ford, B Youngs; Marler, George, Sinckler; Itoje, Kruis; Curry, Underhill, B Vunipola.

Replacements:Cowan-Dickie, M Vunipola, Cole, Lawes, Ludlam, Heinz, Slade, Nowell.

Argentina:Boffelli; Moroni, Orlando, De La Fuente, Carreras; Urdapilleta, Cubelli; Chaparro, Montoya, Figallo, Pagadizabal, Lavanini, Matera, Kremer, Desio

Replacements:Creevy, Vivas, Medrano, Alemanno, Lezana, Ezcurra, Mensa, Delguy