Eddie Jones confirms Jack Willis replacement for England squad

George Martin of Leicester Tigers has been called up to the 28-player squad, with Jack Willis ruled out of the tournament after suffering a knee injury in last weekend’s win over Italy.

Eddie Jones’ side travel to Cardiff next week where they will play Wales at the Principality Stadium on Saturday 27 February (4.45pm KO). The match is live on the BBC.

They will then face France at Twickenham Stadium on Saturday 13 March (4.45pm KO), before travelling to Dublin to play Ireland on Saturday 20 March (4.45pm KO) in their final game.

Former England start 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.

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.

Jones wrote in his autobiography that the Sarries legend ‘could not match the pace and snarl of his long-term rival Mike Brown.’ 

However, according to Brown's column for the Mail Online, Goode clashed with Jones over this opinion in a heated discussion which led to him being frozen out of the squad after 2016.

The fullback then never won a recall despite being awarded the 2019 European Player of the Year award.