Easter answers England's call
Wed, 28 May 2008 15:48
New England captain Nick Easter
Harlequins No.8 Nick Easter, who often takes over the captaincy of his club, will lead a very inexperienced and experimental England side when they take on the Barbarians at Twickenham on Sunday.
There are no players from Bath, who won the European Challenge Cup Final at the weekend, nor from Wasps and Leicester, who meet in Guinness Premiership Final on Saturday.
The team, to play in what is effectively a warm-up game for England ahead of their two-match tour to New Zealand, includes six uncapped players.
There is a brand new front row of Nick Lloyd, David Paice and Jason Hobson. The other uncapped players are lock Nick Kennedy, flank Will Skinner and wing Topsy Ojo.
However, they will all have to wait a while for their first caps, as the game against the Baa-baas is a non-cap match.
Mathew Tait is back at centre, where he links up with his Newcastle teammate Toby Flood in the midfield, while Charlie Hodgson starts
at flyhalf. Richard Wigglesworth is the scrumhalf.
England head to New Zealand next week for Tests against the All Blacks in Auckland and Christchurch, and they will be looking for a solid performance this weekend.
England: 15 Mike Brown (Harlequins), 14 Topsy Ojo (London Irish), 13 Mathew Tait (Newcastle), 12 Toby Flood (Newcastle), 11 David Strettle (Harlequins), 10 Charlie Hodgson (Sale Sharks), 9 Richard Wigglesworth (Sale Sharks), 8 Nick Easter (Harlequins, captain), 7 Will Skinner (Harlequins), 6 Luke Narraway (Gloucester), 5 Nick Kennedy (London Irish), 4 Chris Jones (Sale Sharks), 3 Jason Hobson (Bristol), David Paice (London Irish), 1 Nick Lloyd (Saracens).
Replacements: 16 Dylan Hartley (Northampton), 17 David Wilson (Newcastle), 18 Stuart Hooper (Leeds Carnegie), 19 Tom Guest (Harlequins), 20 Danny Care (Harlequins), 21 Pete Richards (London Irish), 22 Ugo Monye (Harlequins).
Date: Sunday, June
1
Kick-off: 15.00 (16.00 GMT)
Venue: Twickenham
Referee: George Clancy (Ireland)
Touch judges: Alan Lewis. (Ireland), Peter Fitzgibbon (Ireland)
TMO: John Burtenshaw (England)
