England team v Springboks

[Heathen]

England team to play South Africa:

Elliot Daly; Anthony Watson, Manu Tuilagi, Owen Farrell, Jonny May, George Ford, Ben Youngs; Mako Vunipola, Jamie George, Kyle Sinckler, Maro Itoje, Courtney Lawes, Tom Curry, Sam Underhill, Billy Vunipola

Replacements:

Luke Cowan-Dickie, Joe Marler, Dan Cole, George Kruis, Mark Wilson, Ben Spencer, Henry Slade, Jonathan Joseph

No surprises as expected.

[BG]

No surprises there apart from lottery winner Spencer.

Its interesting to note how many players out of the 31 squad we've hardly seen. The squad has faired extremely well given the attritional nature of the weekly games through the whole tournament.

[Rossm]

Does that mean that Willi Heinz has gone from the squad? Seems tough on him if so as that presumably means that he won't get any of the rewards going, should England win.

[Heathen]

Does that mean that Willi Heinz has gone from the squad? Seems tough on him if so as that presumably means that he won't get any of the rewards going, should England win.

That's an interesting situation. Do all squad menbers get a medal?

[Neils]

Does that mean that Willi Heinz has gone from the squad? Seems tough on him if so as that presumably means that he won't get any of the rewards going, should England win.

That's an interesting situation. Do all squad menbers get a medal?

I thought they did.

[mike909]

No surprises there apart from lottery winner Spencer.

Its interesting to note how many players out of the 31 squad we've hardly seen. The squad has faired extremely well given the attritional nature of the weekly games through the whole tournament.

England were quite fortunate - two non games,  vs 14 and a demoralised Argentina, a week off from France and then had to play two

I'd suspect fingers are crossed on Mako, Billy, Farrell and May's fitness at least. would take much for a lot of subs to be on early in the final

[BG]

Does that mean that Willi Heinz has gone from the squad? Seems tough on him if so as that presumably means that he won't get any of the rewards going, should England win.

That's an interesting situation. Do all squad menbers get a medal?

I thought they did.

All squad members receive a medal (why do I always think of Mutley) so I'd hope that Heinz does as well.

Now that he's out of the squad I wonder if he's allowed to be around the squad though? The rules are fairly strict in that current players that aren't part of the squad can't stay at the team hotel or be anywhere near training etc.

I'm always surprised when I hear players immediately fly home once they've left the squad due to injury, but that might be down to their committments to their clubs?

Haskell was invited to spend a day (or half a day) with the squad this week including going to the training session but that's only permitted by not being a current player

[Neils]

They are not going to send an injured Semi player away.  Part of the week would be assessing and treating.

[BG]

Heinz has been removed from the squad because Spencer has been added so Heinz can't be re-added. That doesn't mean Heinz can't stay but I'm now sure that he's allowed to have any interaction with the squad. I'm not sure if that means he can't receive treatment from England team doctors though.

[Shugs]

No surprises - feel for Launchbury. Agree with Mike 909 - whilst we've been great against Aus and NZ the dice rolled in our favour earlier - especially the cancelled game. Here's hoping it continues.

[coddy]

I was kind of hoping if May was still crocked Daly would go to left wing, Watson to Full Back and Nowell on the right wing to give better balance. I then saw Kolbe was back and decided May would negate him better than Daly.

[welsh wasp]

Ah, an excuse for Wales. We had to play all our games unlike England. Please don't mention that so did S Africa.

[InBetweenWasp]

I’m not really sure you can say that USA and Argentina both getting a man sent off was lucky on our side.  It’s more a result of continued pressure and composure by the team frustrating opponents.

If anything, it was lucky that Farrell wasn’t seriously injured in either tackle.

As for the non-France game at the time it was 50/50 - Would we roll into the Australia game undercooked, or would we be fresher.

Given the performances in the QF and SF games I think it’s a fair expectation to say we would have most likely cruised past France.

We’ve certainly be lucky with injuries, but again is that luck or good conditioning?

Jones’ training sessions have often been spoken about as being incredibly intense and although the word hasn’t been used, they sound ferocious.