England World Cup build-up: Stuart Lancaster unsure over World Cup squad cuts

Only 31 can remain of 45-strong squad currently at an intensive training camp in Colorado

Tom Peck
Friday 17 July 2015 22:12 BST
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Stuart Lancaster, the England head coach looks on during the England training session held at Pennyhill Park on June 30, 2015
Stuart Lancaster, the England head coach looks on during the England training session held at Pennyhill Park on June 30, 2015 (Getty)

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Stuart Lancaster has not decided how many players will be cut when England’s World Cup squad is reduced in the first week of August.

The squad who are all at an intensive training camp in Denver, Colorado, currently stands at 45. Only 31 can be named in the final squad at the end of next month, before which England will play France home and away, in games Lancaster does not accept are warm-up matches. “I don’t have a definitive number in my mind at the moment,” he said. “We’ll build up to the game at France at home, then make a decision leading in to the next game away.”

At no point in England’s four-year preparation for this tournament has anything like a settled first XV been established. It means that those matches, on 15 and 22 August, and another against Ireland in early September will arguably be more crucial than they should be, in simply having game time together.

“The reality is I don’t see those games as warm-up games”, he says. “I see them as full-blown internationals. We will go into those games and play them in the way we want to play in the World Cup.” Though the first task at hand is to select the 31 players, he is still thinking “all the time” about the more important choice, the 23 for the opening World Cup game against Fiji, on 18 September.

“The teams that win World Cups are won by 31 players not 15, but after the second France game, the Ireland game, more focus will go on to that 23 [starting players and substitutes]. The team that starts against Fiji will be our No 1 team, and you would expect that team to continue against Wales and Australia. But at the forefront of my mind is getting that 31 right.”

Two in particular have impressed Lancaster thus far. “Billy Vunipola is in the best condition I’ve seen him. Fit, strong, powerful. He’s looking in good shape.

“Backs wise, it’s very competitive. We’ve got six wingers out here, but Johnny May has been excellent. He’s put his hand up in training. He’s got the hunger to show he should be in the starting team, after being dropped for the Six Nations match against Ireland.”

Whether Bath’s Sam Burgess, England’s newest Rugby League import, will do enough to convince is one of the questions that will linger over the next few months, but Lancaster has at least decided his best position. He has played as both flanker and centre for Bath, predominantly the former. Lancaster sees it differently.

“We see him as a centre for two reasons. First, we need our sixes [flankers] to be effective in the line-out. The line-out is a big part for us and for Sam to be competitive in that position was going to be a real stretch for him. He is still learning the game. He doesn’t appreciate the complexity of the line-out at international level and the importance of it really, and that has to be a consideration. Also, Bath have used him as a forward but his effectiveness has been in the middle of the defensive line, and as someone who takes the ball to the line as a carrying threat.

“Without Manu [Tuilagi] in the back-line, we need options that give us physicality. We’re confident from what we’ve seen that he’d be capable of competing at centre. Centre is where he’s been running with us and that’s where we’ll see him training right until the final 31 are selected. But it’s a competitive position when you see the options we have in the position.”

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