Trio called into England matchday squad

JamesHaskell

The trio are set to be involved for the first time during the November internationals, having replaced Billy Vunipola, Kyle Eastmond and Danny Care.

Along with Luther Burrell and Calum Clark, Vunipola, Care and Eastmond - who suffered concussion against South Africa last weekend - will return to their club sides.

England have experienced narrow defeats in their first two internationals of the series - 24-21 to New Zealand and 31-28 to South Africa - and head coach Stuart Lancaster sees Saturday's clash with Samoa as a chance to take a look at some alternative choices.

"We always wanted to use these four games to look at options in our squad and Billy, Richard and James have been in great form for their clubs and pressing hard in training," he said.

"Kyle has not been able to train due to the Graduated Return To Play protocol and will return to Bath to continue that process and hopefully he should be available for his club this weekend along with the other released players.

"We’ve got another full day of training tomorrow [Wednesday] and the players are fully focused on another tough challenge against Samoa."

The starting XV is due to be announced on Wednesday.

Squad: Dave Attwood, Kieran Brookes, Dylan Hartley, James Haskell, George Kruis, Courtney Lawes, Joe Marler, Ben Morgan, Matt Mullan, Chris Robshaw, Rob Webber, David Wilson, Tom Wood, Brad Barritt, Mike Brown, Owen Farrell, George Ford, Jonny May, Billy Twelvetrees, Anthony Watson, Richard Wigglesworth, Marland Yarde, Ben Youngs.

 

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