Martin Johnson makes three changes to England crew for Scotland clash - Rugby World Cup News
England manager, Martin Johnson, has featured three changes in his team to meet Scotland in their last clash of Rugby World Cup 2011 Pool matches. The sides will stand toe-to-toe on October 1 in Eden Park, Auckland, in a much anticipated match for the quarter-final
stages. Johnson has taken the bold decision of dropping Mark Cueto completely from the match despite his excellent performance against Romania during their last outing of the four-year event. Johnson revealed his 22-member crew on September 29 and allowed
Courtney Lawes along with Matt Stevens to join the new combination.
Tom Palmer, who was given a starting role during the last match, has been reduced to the benches and Alex Corbisiero has been rested from the match as Matt Stevens recovers from an ankle injury. Furthermore, number eight player Nick Easter is also given
a bench role after overcoming his back injury.
Overall, it is a strong looking England side in the presence of their skipper Lewis Moody, Chris Ashton, Ben Foden and Jonny Wilkinson. Ashton is in great nick at the moment with five tries under his belt in the so far played matches of RWC.
The forthcoming match has got great significance for the qualifications to the quarter-final stages as Argentina and Scotland are placed on 3rd and 4th positions on the point’s tables respectively. If England play below par in this
match it will become hard to determine the top two sides of the group unless Argentina take on Georgia. However, if England wins this match they will straight away pass the first hurdle of the round matches and Scotland will be packing their luggage for home.
England’s squad for Scotland encounter:
England: 15 Ben Foden, 14 Chris Ashton, 13 Manu Tuilagi, 12 Mike Tindall, 11 Delon Armitage, 10 Jonny Wilkinson, 9 Ben Youngs, 8 James Haskell, 7 Lewis Moody (captain), 6 Tom Croft, 5 Courtney Lawes, 4 Louis Deacon, 3 Dan Cole, 2 Steve Thompson,
1 Matt Stevens.
Replacements: 16 Dylan Hartley, 17 Alex Corbisiero, 18 Tom Palmer, 19 Nick Easter, 20 Richard Wigglesworth, 21 Toby Flood, 22 Matt Banahan
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