George Ford has been named at fly-half for England’s opening autumn Test against Australia on Saturday at Allianz Stadium.<\/b><\/p>\n
Northampton’s Fin Smith drops to the bench and there is no space in the 23-man squad for Harlequins playmaker Marcus Smith.<\/p>\n
Tommy Freeman moves in from the right wing, where he started all three Tests for the British and Irish Lions, to outside centre and is partnered by his Saints team-mate Fraser Dingwall.<\/p>\n
Dingwall, 26, started alongside Freeman in the centre in England’s emphatic Six Nations win over Wales in March.<\/p>\n
The Northampton pair are picked ahead of in-form Henry Slade of Exeter Chiefs and Ollie Lawrence, who returned at the start of the season from a ruptured Achilles.<\/p>\n
They have been head coach Steve Borthwick’s regular midfield combination until Lawrence’s injury in this year’s Six Nations against Italy.<\/p>\n
Sale’s Tom Roebuck is on the right wing with Immanuel Feyi-Waboso on the opposite side.<\/p>\n
Roebuck, 24, scored twice in the first Test against Argentina and has been a reliable performer since his international debut last year.<\/p>\n
Exeter’s Feyi-Waboso, 22, has struggled with injury and missed the Tests against the Pumas through suspension, but with seven Prem tries has hit the ground running this season.<\/p>\n
Freddie Steward is at full-back, where Marcus Smith started three times during this year’s Six Nations, as Borthwick leans on form in the summer, when the Leicester Tigers player back scored a try in each Test against the Pumas.<\/p>\n
Borthwick has resisted including uncapped Saracens wing Noah Caluori, 19, after his sensational five-try first Prem start earlier this month.<\/p>\n
In the pack, Bath flankers Guy Pepper and Sam Underhill both start with Ben Earl of Saracens at number eight.<\/p>\n
Sale hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie can win his 50th cap off the bench, while team-mate Tom Curry could also make his first appearance of the season for club or country from the replacements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Ford has been named at fly-half for England’s opening autumn Test against Australia on Saturday at Allianz…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,19,17,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-149737","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115452389953282857","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}