England have been rocked by a new injury blow after Ollie Chessum was ruled out of the Six Nations finale in Ireland after suffering an ankle problem in training.
Leicester second row Chessum has been one of the early success stories under new boss Steve Borthwick, quickly making the tighthead lock berth his own. The 22-year-old picked up a significant problem in England training on Tuesday however, and will miss Saturday’s Dublin trip.
Leicester’s George Martin has replaced Chessum in England’s ranks, with head coach Borthwick retaining 30 players ahead of the Aviva Stadium clash. Manu Tuilagi and George Ford have stayed with England’s squad, with both primed to feature. Will Collier, Ben Earl, Cadan Murley, Ben Youngs, Guy Porter and Tommy Freeman have all been released back to their clubs.
“Ollie’s a loss to us, he’s been great,” said England assistant coach Kevin Sinfield. “We’ve played him in the second row but he covers back row for us as well. He will be a huge loss.”
Tuilagi is primed for his first taste of Six Nations action in 2023, having served a three-week suspension for a red card on Sale duty. The 31-year-old has not featured for England since the 27-13 loss to South Africa at Twickenham that closed the miserable autumn campaign and cost head coach Eddie Jones his job.
The Sale powerhouse offers a direct replacement for Ollie Lawrence, who suffered a hamstring injury in Saturday’s 53-10 hammering by France at Twickenham. England were humiliated by their record home defeat in Saturday’s seven-try shaming at the hands of the rampant French, who mercilessly dismantled Borthwick’s new Red Rose side.
Defence specialist Sinfield admitted sleepless nights in England’s coaching ranks, ahead of an arguably even tougher test in facing the world’s top-ranked team Ireland this weekend. Andy Farrell’s Irish can claim a second Grand Slam in five years on Saturday, leaving England chasing vast improvement in the space of seven days.
“It's been tough, any time you get 50 stuck on your chin it's not nice,” said Sinfield. “We've worked through it. We've worked incredibly hard, we have done anyway throughout this campaign.
“You probably get a fair bit less sleep because you're mulling things over trying to understand why, but we've worked incredibly hard over the last couple of days to try and fix some of the areas we feel short in – and there are quite a few.
“This was never going to be a straight line and it was never going to be straightforward. I feel like we've got some wonderful people who want to make a huge difference and take us forward. It's our job to get better and improve and that's what we want to do this weekend.
“When you ship 50 points and you're in charge of the defence, it doesn't sit well with you. I certainly don't put this at the players' door. We're all in this together and we've got to work our way through it.
“It's our jobs to fix it and make sure it doesn't happen again. It shouldn't have happened on Saturday but what's done is done, we learn the lessons, pick the bones out of it and ensure we're better this weekend.”
