Courtney Lawes has been confirmed in England's 23-man squad to face New Zealand on Saturday in one of two changes.
The second rower returned to action for Northampton last weekend after being laid low by a knee injury and is now back in England colours. Mouritz Botha is the man to miss out.
In the only other change to the squad that lost to South Africa, fly-half Freddie Burns comes in for Toby Flood who is ruled out due to a toe injury.
Coach Stuart Lancaster will name his starting XV on Thursday.
Comments
heart_of_oak says...
Lancaster is too conservative. We'll probably start with Lawes and Burns on the bench and bring them on when it's too late to make a difference.
I do hope we play in our normal colours for this game. When we play in these daft colours it's as if Gok Wan has joined the board of the RFU and is working to see that our players get in touch with their feminine side.
Posted 13:31 28th November 2012
butl says...
Lawes vs Etzbeth would have been good!
Posted 11:03 28th November 2012
APV1 says...
Parling & Lawes?
Launchbury & Lawes?
Parling & Launchbury?
Who will start..?
Launchbury and Lawes for me. Why not? What've we got to lose?
Posted 10:43 28th November 2012
Centre12 says...
Both better options than the original pair, hopefully CL stays injury free, I think Launchbury and Lawes would be great together building towards 2015.
Talk about baptism of fire, I really hope if Burns starts that it doesn't mentally damage him like it did Allen back in 05, this kid is definatly the future of #10 along with Ford
Posted 05:19 28th November 2012