England team to play Tonga: Autumn Nations Series

Eddie Jones has named his England team to play Tonga on Thursday.

Owen Farrell misses the match as he produced a positive PCR test result for COVID on Friday. George Furbank fills in at fly half, and Courtney Lawes - making his 88th cap - leads the side. Gloucester's Mark Atkinson is named as a finisher.

"As Owen is unavailable to us, we’ve made these changes to the team to face Tonga today," said Jones. “It’s a great chance for the team to see how we adapt to challenges and keep focused on preparing for a big game. We can’t wait to play in front of a full crowd at Twickenham."

Tom Curry (No.8), Ellis Genge (loose-head prop) and Courtney Lawes (blind-side flanker) have been named England vice-captains for the Autumn Nations Series and all start against Tonga.

Manu Tuilagi makes his first appearance for England since March 2020, after coming back from injury, at inside centre, and Henry Slade is outside centre.

"We’ve had two good preparation camps in Jersey and Pennyhill Park, worked really hard and we’re ready for a tough, physical game," said Jones.

"We respect Tonga greatly and we know that with props like Siegfried Fisi’ihoi and Ben Tameifuna, we are going to have to go in the front door before the back door.

"We’re especially looking forward to getting back out in front of a full crowd at Twickenham and playing some entertaining, exciting rugby for all of the supporters, we can’t wait to have them back."

Scroll down for the England team to play Tonga.

Prime members can watch the Autumn Nations Series live from 30^th October with the Prime Video app on TVs, mobile devices, Amazon Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, Fire tablets, games consoles, on Virgin’s V6 TV Box, the Talk Talk TV set top box, Apple TV, Chromecast, BT TV or online.

For a list of all compatible devices visit amazon.co.uk/watchanywhere.

STARTERS: 15. Freddie Steward (Leicester Tigers, 2 caps) 14. Adam Radwan (Newcastle Falcons, 1 cap) 13. Henry Slade (Exeter Chiefs, 40 caps) 12. Manu Tuilagi (Sale Sharks, 43 caps) 11. Jonny May (Gloucester Rugby, 66 caps) 10. George Furbank (Northampton Saints, 4 caps) 9. Ben Youngs (Leicester Tigers, 109 caps) 1. Ellis Genge (Leicester Tigers, 30 caps) 2. Jamie George (Saracens, 59 caps) 3. Kyle Sinckler (Bristol Bears, 44 caps) 4. Maro Itoje (Saracens, 48 caps) 5. Jonny Hill (Exeter Chiefs, 9 caps) 6. Courtney Lawes (Northampton Saints, 87 caps) 7. Sam Underhill (Bath Rugby, 24 caps) 8. Tom Curry (Sale Sharks, 33 caps)

FINISHERS 16. Jamie Blamire (Newcastle Falcons, 2 caps) 17. Joe Marler (Harlequins, 72 caps) 18. Will Stuart (Bath Rugby, 12 caps) 19. Charlie Ewels (Bath Rugby, 23 caps) 20. Alex Dombrandt (Harlequins, 1 cap) 21. Alex Mitchell (Northampton Saints, uncapped) 22. Marcus Smith (Harlequins, 2 caps) 23. Mark Atkinson (Gloucester, Uncapped)

Former England playmaker Kyran Bracken was the first person to reveal why the Quins playmaker was mysteriously frozen out of Jones plans in 2018 despite being a regular up until that point.

“He (Care) made the mistake of speaking his mind to Eddie Jones and questioning how he wanted him to play when he was playing with an England ‘B’ team against Japan in the autumn of 2018,” said Bracken.

“Eddie’s response to that was ‘that’s not the attitude I want’ and he binned him from his plans.”

This story was later backed up by England and Harlequins teammate Mike Brown.

DID YOU KNOW? At age 11 he was invited to join the Academy at Sheffield Wednesday Football Club which meant giving up club rugby union for a fw years

Brown wrote in his column: ‘I’d had one of my best seasons for Quins (2018/19) with really good attacking stats (2019), but Eddie had pigeon-holed me as a defensive full-back. At the end of this meeting, he asked if I had anything I wanted to say.

“I challenged his comments that I was just a defensive full-back, saying I thought I had been adding value to the attack, with examples and stats from my season, before saying I would take away all of his points and that I would do everything I could to get into the World Cup squad.

“He did not like that I had contested what he said and went mad. He shouted: ‘Well you lost the f****** ball in contact on Saturday, didn’t you? That’s f****** not good enough. You’re not f****** doing everything you can.'”

Ultimately, Brown wouldn’t be picked for the Rugby World Cup with Jones saying that his clash with teammate Ben Te’o had nothing to do with his omission. He’s not been picked since.

DID YOU KNOW? He married long term partner, fashion designer Eliza Scarlett Woodcock, the daughter of former England international footballer Tony Woodcock in 2016

Kiwi-born England hooker Dylan Hartley recalled Marland Yarde arriving at England’s Pennyhill base, “a bit bruised and battered” after a club game.

“Eddie greeted him with a bright ‘How are you feeling, mate?’ and the conversation quickly went downhill. ‘Oh, a bit tired.’ ‘F… off, mate.’ ‘What?’ ‘If you’re tired, f… off. I don’t want tired players here.’ As you can imagine, their cosy fireside chat echoed around the halls within minutes.”

He never played for England again.

Jones wrote his autobiography: "When a player consistently does stupid things, you don't expect him to change much. Players make choices and they have to live with the consequences.

“I was willing to see what Cipriani could do – despite often feeling frustrated because even the rugby reporters wanted to talk about him more than any other player.

“From Danny’s perspective his cause was done more damage when he played for Gloucester against Saracens. It was billed as a showdown between Farrell and Cipriani, but it was no contest. Saracens and Farrell were dominant. It was very disappointing.”

When asked about dropping the big number 8, Jones said: "Billy's got to find the best version of himself.

"I think he's going in the right direction at the moment. He's got a long road, but we'll see where he goes."

However, subsequent reports suggested that Jones had found Vunipola's attitude following the 2019 World Cup to be far below what he expected.

Vunipola's recent uplift in form also came to a dramatic end as he was ruled out for up to eight weeks.