England’s plans for the Calcutta Cup collision in Edinburgh on Saturday have been dealt a heavy double blow with the captain, Courtney Lawes, and the lock Jonny Hill both confirmed absentees through injury. The head coach, Eddie Jones, will now have to find an alternative captain and fill two more sizeable holes in his already reshuffled team to face Scotland at Murrayfield.
Neither Lawes nor Hill has been able to train fully this week because of concussion and a stress fracture of the leg respectively and Jones has now accepted he must look elsewhere. The absence of Lawes, who was replaced after taking a blow in the second half of Northampton’s game against Ulster this month, means the captaincy is now likely to pass to Sale’s Tom Curry or, conceivably, Exeter’s Luke Cowan-Dickie.
