{"id":634266,"date":"2025-12-15T16:29:21","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T16:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/634266\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T16:29:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T16:29:21","slug":"england-great-explains-why-ted-hill-misses-out-on-test-selection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/634266\/","title":{"rendered":"England great explains ‘why Ted Hill misses out’ on Test selection"},"content":{"rendered":"

Retired England centurion Dan Cole has given his verdict on why Ted Hill continues to be snubbed at Test level by Steve Borthwick despite his consistently excellent form for Bath.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Back firing after an injury limited his start to the season, the 26-year-old was at the top of his game for Johann van Graan\u2019s side, considerably helping to make the PREM champions massively competitive in their 34-45 Investec Champions Cup pool loss at Toulon<\/a> on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Hill<\/a> made three Test appearances off the England bench during 2025, featuring against Scotland and Italy in the Six Nations and then against the USA on their summer tour. It followed two previous appearances as a replacement during the Eddie Jones era.<\/p>\n

However, he has yet to be picked as a starter and, more often than not, finds himself excluded from Borthwick\u2019s squads.<\/p>\n

Hill\u2019s inability to secure a consistent run of England selection was a topic latched onto by Cole on this week\u2019s For The Love Of Rugby<\/a>, the show he co-hosts with Ben Youngs, who retired from Test rugby in 2023 as his country\u2019s most capped men\u2019s player of all time.<\/p>\n

\u201cFantastic individual performance\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Reflecting on Bath\u2019s loss in Toulon, Youngs said: \u201cOne player I want to talk about is Ted Hill. Once again, a fantastic individual performance. What does he have to do to get more England recognition?<\/p>\n

Cole<\/a> replied: \u201cI don\u2019t think he is not an international player, I just don\u2019t think he probably suits the way England want to play the game at this point in time\u2026 You have your Underhills, you have your Guy Peppers, who basically go around hitting everything, working in the middle of the field. Ben Earl is similar.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey do a lot of work in the middle of the field, and Ted Hill can do that, but Ted Hill is probably one of those classics of six like Tom Croft, where they are always best in space because they are such great athletes. Yes, they can jackal ball and hit things, but they naturally end up in those wider channels.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes that is great if you are setting your team up that way to do it, and you want to play rugby and that kind of stuff and move the ball around. But the way England are now set-up, they basically want three guys in the back-row that hit everything and jackal and get over the ball and make everything an arm wrestle. That is why Ted Hill misses out.<\/p>\n

Investec Champions Cup Team of the Week: Henry Pollock \u2018backs up his chat\u2019 against \u2018hapless\u2019 Bulls while \u2018Le Boss\u2019 earns individual gong<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cNot because he isn\u2019t good enough. It\u2019s just that England have chosen to go down a different path and sometimes that happens. It\u2019s the way the team is set-up and it\u2019s no slight on him. It\u2019s a question of does he fit the way you want to play and if that is no, then you have to make those tough decisions. You can\u2019t really disagree because England have won 11 games.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the Toulon stars in their win over the English champions was Kyle Sinckler, Cole\u2019s former rival for the No.3 Test shirt. Sinckler fell down the pecking order following Rugby World Cup 2023 and has been unavailable for England selection since his summer of 2024 switch to the Top 14 from Bristol.<\/p>\n

\u201cSet-piece, you have got to credit Kyle Sinckler,\u201d enthused Cole, continuing his reflections from Sunday\u2019s Stade Mayol match. \u201cHe was brilliant. Played pretty much the full 80. Not only his carry around the field but his scrum was great. He showed how class of a player he is.<\/p>\n

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Youngs added: \u201cHe was lively. Not only was he great and brilliant around the set-piece but he was making metres, making little breaks, looking for offloads. He looks like someone that is really loving and thriving out in Toulon. Lewis Ludlam as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another forward to impress Youngs over the course of the Champions Cup Round Two weekend was Leinster and Ireland lock Joe McCarthy, who was a Friday night winner at Leicester.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was also really impressed with Joe McCarthy<\/a>,\u201d he added. \u201cI\u2019d have loved seeing him and Ollie Chessum\/George Martin go at it because Joe McCarthy is a real player. Great modern-day lock.<\/p>\n

\u201cIreland definitely missed him in the autumn, and he showed his quality on Friday. Those conditions suited him to a tee and he was into everything, very physical. Big presence with and without the ball. Great to see him back on the rugby field.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Who\u2019s hot and who\u2019s not: \u2018Quite incredible\u2019 Glasgow comeback, \u2018slightly bizarre\u2019 Eben Etzebeth and Ireland star\u2019s \u2018stinker\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Retired England centurion Dan Cole has given his verdict on why Ted Hill continues to be snubbed at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5008],"tags":[5012,748,393,4884,225,90462,191668,12,45827,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-634266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-england","8":"tag-bath","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-home-page","13":"tag-internationals","14":"tag-investec-champions-cup","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-ted-hill","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}