Line-ups
England
1.Genge 2.George(C) 3.Stuart 4.Itoje 5.Martin 6.Cunningham-South 7.T.Curry 8.Earl
9.Spencer 10.Smith 11.Freeman 12.Lawrence 13.Slade 14.Feyi-Waboso 15.Furbank
16.Dan 17.Baxter 18.Cole 19.Isiekwe 20.B.Curry 21.Dombrandt 22.Randall 23.Ford
New Zealand
1.Williams 2.Taylor 3.Lomax 4.S.Barrett(C) 5.Vaa'i 6.Sititi 7.Cane 8.Savea
9.Ratima 10.B.Barrett 11.Clarke 12.J.Barrett 13.Ioane 14.Telea 15.Jordan
16.Aumua 17.Tu'ungafasi 18.Tosi 19.Tuipulotu 20.Finau 21.Roigard 22.Leinert-Brown 23.Mckenzie
England:
joe Marler has left the team for personal reasons which are unrelated to his tweets about the haka. Ellis Genge starts at loosehead so FIn Baxter starts on the bench. Tom Curry starts at openside flanker ahead of Sam Underhill who doesn't even make the bench with the other Curry brother (Ben) surpassing him as well. Ben Spencer gets an opportunity to start at scrum-half with Harry Randall beating Van Poortvliet to a spot on the bench. Slade has proved his fitness enough to start at outside centre next to Ollie Lawrence. The biggest surprise is Steve Borthwick selecting a 6-2 split on the bench. Alex Dombrandt is the most obvious beneficiary of that decision which does leave England vulnerable if anyone in the backs gets injured. One big miss is Ollie chessum who will be a big loss at the line-out. This is a strong England team which will be feeling confident of getting a home win, given the close games on the summer tour of New Zealand.
New Zealand:
New Zealand beat England twice in the summer before having a mixed Rugby Championship in which they lost 3 games as well as winning 3. The biggest headline of this team selection is Beauden Barrett moving from fullback to fly-half and replacing Damien Mckenzie who drops to the bench. This creates an exciting back three of Caleb Clarke, Mark Telea and Will Jordan. Wallace Sititi seem to have nailed down his spot in the back row alongside the experienced All Blacks Sam Cane and Ardie Savea. Ratima starts at scrum-half so Cam Roigard will be in a position to change the game when he comes on. It will be interesting to see what positional changes there are when Damien Mckenzie enters the field of play. Will he come on at fullback or fly-half and who will he replace?
My prediction:
England 27 vs 22 New Zealand
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