England Rugby World Cup squad announcement LIVE: Eddie Jones names final team for Japan 2019
Follow the latest updates from Bristol where England head coach Jones will explain his final 31-man squad for the 2019 Rugby World Cup
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Your support makes all the difference.Follow the latest updates live from England’s Rugby World Cup squad announcement as Eddie Jones names his final 31-man squad for Japan 2019.
The England head coach has made a number of bold decisions, including Piers Francis at the expense of the dropped Ben Te'o and naming Ruaridh McConnochie, Willi Heinz, Lewis Ludlam and Jack Singleton in the side despite the quartet having just three caps between them - all of them from the victory over Wales yesterday.
Owen Farrell is confirmed as the World Cup captain in a squad that features 17 forwards and 14 backs, with Harry Williams, Ben Spencer, Brad Shields and Danny Cipriani also omitted. Follow the live news below.
What time does it start?
The England squad announcement will be made at 1pm.
When will Eddie Jones speak?
The England head coach will face the media at 3pm to explain his selection decisions.
Jones has arrived along with assistant coaches Steve Bortwick, John Mitchell, Scott Wisemantel and Neil Hatley, so for ease on who says what, we'll abbreviate their initials at the start of each update.
They should be walking into the press conference any second now...
We have a slight delay on our hands - because the team bus is stuck.
The entrance to the school proved too tight for the England team bus, forcing the driver to reverse back out and the press conference to get off to a typical start.
All 31 players, instead of walking off to a hero's welcome from the 53 school kids in attendance to greet them, have instead been forced to get off up the road and walk down to the school gates.
Let's hope it's not a sign of things to come for England.
When was the final name inked:
EJ: Not too many glasses of red wine. We finslised it last night, the coaches left the ground a little bit earlier and we had a meeting where we finalised the last poisitions.
EJ: We're really excited for the players selected. For those that aren't, we've told them that they need to be ready because you never know when injury will hit.
Reactions:
EJ: We never tell the players they're in, we only tell them they're out. We told players in the camp this morning, and the ones who weren't we told them by phone messages or phone calls.
Who's smiling the most:
EJ: Errrrr, I'm not sure. I think they all are!
Squad bolters:
EJ: We've been watching Ruaridh for a while, he's come into camp and impressed and he's really mature, can play a few positions and that proved an easy decisions. With Lewis, we wanted to bring him in to the camp and he just got better and better, and then we saw how good he can be yesterday and that's just the start of his career.
Brad Shield omission:
EJ: We're not going to go into reasons for players left out out of respect. But Brad was unlucky.
Ben Te'o due to the 'atlercation' or form?
EJ: Again we're not going to explain those reasons here. We've explained them to Ben, and he might not accept them, but those are the reasons. We respect the job you've got to do bu that doesn't mean we're going to disrespect the players.
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