England Six Nations squad: Tom Youngs the big surprise as Eddie Jones culls World Cup flops

A number of senior figures from the Stuart Lancaster regime have been demoted

England coach Eddie Jones chose to leave out hooker Tom Youngs (Getty Images)

Eddie Jones, something of a genius when it comes to the difficult skill of shuffling a pack while keeping the cards tight to his chest, won his poker game with the English rugby public yesterday by dropping the red-rose World Cup hooker Tom Youngs from his squad for the forthcoming Six Nations, which begins with a hazardous Calcutta Cup trip to Scotland in a little over three weeks’ time.

The demotions of a number of other senior figures in the Stuart Lancaster regime – the centre Brad Barritt, the scrum-half Richard Wigglesworth, the tight-head prop David Wilson, the lock Geoff Parling, the flanker Tom Wood and the No 8 Ben Morgan – were widely considered to be likely, if not certain.

But Youngs, the Leicester forward touted by his club coach Richard Cockerill as a national captain in waiting, had not appeared on anyone’s list of dead men walking.

Jones, who succeeded Lancaster in December and has spent the last six weeks watching every serious game of rugby played by a Premiership club, was in no mood to discuss this decision in anything other than the vaguest terms.

“I’ve been coaching for 20 years and borderline selection calls are never easy,” he said. “Tom is a hard-working player who understands what he has to do. The detail of that is between me and him, but I’m sure he’ll address it.”

He also sidestepped the richly entertaining theory that Dylan Hartley of Northampton – one of the sport’s more troublesome characters – might take the reins from Chris Robshaw. Hartley missed the World Cup after the latest in a litany of disciplinary transgressions, and as things stand he is not even the first-choice hooker at Franklin’s Gardens. If that does not change quickly, Jamie George of Saracens will be favourite to start at Murrayfield on 6 February.

“We have 33 players on this list and that will go down to 23, and then to 15,” the Australian said. “When we get to 15, we’ll have our captain. He’ll be the first on the team sheet because we’ll want him to be our best player and to lead by example.”

Asked what influence he had on team selection at Northampton in terms of maximising Hartley’s game time over the next two weekends, he remained silent – but drew his thumb and forefinger together to make a perfectly round zero.

Seven uncapped players were included. The Exeter centre Sam Hill and the Bath midfielder Ollie Devoto are in because of fitness issues surrounding the outstanding prospect Henry Slade, who will struggle to play again this season, and Manu Tuilagi, who has yet to complete a full game after 14 months of orthopaedic misery.

None of the others – the Wasps centre Elliot Daly, the Northampton prop Paul Hill, the Saracens lock Maro Itoje, the Harlequins flanker Jack Clifford and the Sale No 8 Josh Beaumont – are likely to start in Scotland, but Jones is tempted to give the best performing of them a run against Italy in Rome.

Robshaw, heavily criticised during the World Cup, will be feeling happier now – partly because he is playing regularly in his natural position of blind-side flanker after his testing shift on the opposite side of the back row, and partly because Jones gave him a big mention in dispatches.

“We want a No 6 and a No 7 in our back row, not a No 6-and-a-half,” remarked the coach. “Robshaw has been going really well recently because he has half a number off his back.”

If there are three men auditioning for the open-side role in Edinburgh – the long-serving James Haskell, one of only two thirtysomethings in a very young squad, is probably just ahead of Clifford and the hard-working Gloucester groundhog Matt Kvesic – the hunt is on for a long-term solution.

Jones confirmed that Sam Underhill, the 19-year-old Gloucester product playing the house down in Wales with Ospreys, was at the top of the “work in progress” list.

Nine of the 33-strong squad who failed to survive the World Cup pool stage are now off the roster – a heavy cull in anyone’s language. Yet Jones was not completely sold on the idea that his first selection was a radical one.

“How do you define ‘radical’?” he asked. “To me, ‘radical’ is playing really good rugby by moving the ball with speed and crispness and accuracy. If that’s radical, you have radical coming.”

Does that mean he’ll be happy to play lovely rugby and finish third? “Don’t kid yourself: lovely rugby doesn’t come third,” he replied, waspishly. “What we need to do is win. Over the Six Nations since 2003, England are ranked fourth. That’s not a reflection of the talent in the country, so what these guys have to do is change that history.”