Eddie Jones reveals the honest reason he's dropped Manu Tuilagi

Eddie Jones has revealed Manu Tuilagi cannot be expected to play every week due to his pretty extensive injury problems down the years.

The Sale Sharks powerhouse is replaced in the England team to play Japan by Leicester Tigers centre Guy Porter.

“It’s all about workload. We’ve given him a lighter week of training. He’ll still be able to finish for us,” revealed the England head coach.

“We just feel that with Manu’s injury record, to play four big games in a row is probably not in his best interests at the moment.

Eddie Jones says managing Manu Tuilagi's workload to avoid injury so it means he cannot play four tests in a row " it's not in his best interests." Sounds like @EnglandRugby have listened to @SaleSharksRugby
— chris jones (@chrisjonespress) November 10, 2022

“Whenever you’ve got a powerful player with soft tissue injuries, you’ve got to experiment a little bit.

“It’s about what’s the right training load, what’s the right kind of training, what’s the right rehabilitation, what’s the right recovery?

“You can’t go to a textbook and look up: ‘Chapter one – difficult players to manage’. There’s just no textbook for it, so it’s a matter of experimentation.

“It’s a matter of cohesion between the staff here and at Sale, the medical staff and strength and conditioning staff, and I think that’s being done really well.

“We’ve got him in a good position now, he played 60-odd minutes against Japan, he trained with us yesterday (Wednesday) and did most of the training.

“He’s in a really good spot, he looks lean, he looks healthy and we’ll get a good result from him off the bench.”

When is England vs Japan?

The fixture between England and Japan takes place at Twickenham Stadium in London on Saturday 12 November and kicks off at 3:15pm (GMT).

How can I watch England vs Japan?

The match will not be available on terrestrial television and like the rest of the autumn internationals will be broadcast on Amazon Prime Video.

Expected England team to play Japan:

15. Freddie Steward

14. Jack Nowell (VC)

13. Guy Porter

12. Owen Farrell (C)

11. Jonny May

10. Marcus Smith

9. Jack van Poortvliet

1. Ellis Genge (VC)

2. Luke Cowan-Dickie

3. Kyle Sinckler

4. David Ribbans

5. Jonny Hill

6. Maro Itoje

7. Tom Curry

8. Sam Simmonds

Finishers

16. Jamie George

17. Mako Vunipola

18. Joe Heyes

19. Alex Coles

20. Billy Vunipola

21. Ben Youngs

22. Henry Slade

23. Manu Tuilagi

Warren Gatland’s England XV to face Japan

Back-three:

15. Freddie Steward (Leicester Tigers)
14. Jack Nowell (Exeter Chiefs)
11. Joe Cokanasiga (Bath RFC)

Freddie Steward of England goes over for a try during the Autumn Nations Match between England and Australia at Twickenham on 13 November 2021. Photo: Micah Crook/PPAUK

DID YOU KNOW?

In May 2022 Steward was named as the Rugby Players’ Association Player’s Young player of the year and England men’s player of the season
In April 2017, Nowell was called up for the 2017 British & Irish Lions tour to New Zealand, becoming the first player to be selected from Exeter Chiefs by the Lions
Cokanasiga was born in Fiji but before his third birthday, moved to England with his father, Ilaitia, who was in the British Army

Centres:

13. Henry Slade (Exeter Chiefs)
12. Manu Tuilagi (Sale Sharks)

Manu Tuilagi of England during the Autumn Nations Match between England and Tonga at Twickenham Stoop on 6 November 2021. Photo: Tom Sandberg/PPAUK

DID YOU KNOW?

He was named Manusamoa, after the name of the Samoan national team, Manu Samoa, because his brother Freddie was selected for Samoa at the World Cup in 1991, the year Manu was born