Eddie Jones’ eight unused England tourists in…

Eddie Jones’ eight unused England tourists in Australia: Bristol Bears and Exeter Chiefs stars sidelined

Eight players in England’s 36-man squad to tour Australia are set to return home from the far side of the world having not played a minute of competitive rugby this summer.

While Ireland have played two midweek games against the New Zealand Maori during their summer Test series against the All Blacks, England have opted to play just the three Test matches against the Wallabies, with players tired and battered after a long slog of a season in the Gallagher Premiership.

Just this week tour captain Courtney Lawes spoke about how training was being tapered down to allow players to recover and patch themselves up for game day.

But the negative impact of the lack of midweek games is Eddie Jones has not been able to see a number of fringe players in competitive action.

Both of Bristol Bears’ representatives in the squad, scrum half Harry Randall and backrower/lock Sam Jeffries are yet to play and have missed out on selection for the final Test in Sydney with the series delicately balanced at 1-1.

Randall's card seems to have been marked by his poor display against the Barbarians so a midweek tour game to remind Jones what he can do would have been highly useful for the explosive Bristol man.

Exeter Chiefs’ exciting young tighthead prospect Patrick Schickerling, who was playing for Cornish Pirates in the Championship until Christmas, has seemingly been deemed not ready for the international area yet along with Harlequins hooker Jack Walker and Sale Sharks prop Bevan Rodd.

Rodd, 21, already has two caps under his belt whereas 23-year-old Schickerling and 26-year-old Walker are yet to make their debuts.

In the backs, poor Gloucester flyer Jonny May has seen his tour wrecked by a positive Covid test on arrival in Australia and has not been picked in a matchday squad since.

Northampton duo George Furbank and Fraser Dingwall, who have both been in fine form for Saints this season as Northampton finished in the Premiership play-offs, have also not been called upon, left instead to hold the bags and run opposition in training.

Jones said: “We’ve had a squad of 36 this tour who have competed hard and we’re really proud of their efforts. We go into this [third] Test with a strong squad of 23. It’s a young, inexperienced but together group who have developed well throughout this series.

"I really like the way our team is developing," he said. "I think we’ve grown a lot on the tour, you can just see it in the players’ eyes. We’ve brought back guys who are getting close to their best, then you’ve got this group of young guns coming through and when the two get the right mix we’re going to have a really good team.

“We took an approach on tour to only be rugby until midday and give the players the afternoons to recover, relax and regenerate. So they’re really fresh, we had our best training session of the tour yesterday so we’re in really good nick. They’ve trained hard, recovered well we feel good about where we’re at, we’re really looking forward to this game.”

The match kicks off at 11am UK time on Saturday and is being broadcast on Sky Sports.