Eddie Jones says England will prepare for a Wallabies side with David Pocock in it, even though the number eight didn’t train on Monday.
Pocock came off in the second-half of Australia’s win over Italy nursing the same sore neck picked up in the second Bledisloe Cup loss to the All Blacks – an injury that has been an ongoing saga.
But Jones believes the Wallabies may be over-hyping the injury in a deliberate ploy to keep England guessing ahead of the sides’ Cook Cup encounter at Twickenham on Saturday.
“I hear this every time we play Australia, ‘Pocock’s not going to be fit’,” Jones told the Sydney Morning Herald. “When I heard it, I thought, ‘here we go again’. You know those merry-go-rounds at the Royal Easter Show? It’s a bit like that. We’re not even thinking about it.”
The Wallabies have complained that 30-year-old Pocock, the world’s premier exponent at the breakdown, has been the target of neck rolls ever since the June Ireland series and want more protection for their precious poacher.