Owen Farrell and Ben Te’o will form a new-look 10-12 combination for England in Saturday’s Test against the Springboks at Twickenham.
England are missing a host of players who are primarily unavailable due to injury, and coach Eddie Jones has been forced to name a largely inexperienced side.
ALSO READ: England without 17 players for Bok Test
Dylan Hartley and Farrell have been named as co-captains in a starting XV which includes 413 caps.
Up front, Alec Hepburn will make his starting debut for England, while uncapped players Zach Mercer and Ben Moon will play off the bench.
Although Te’o has played very little rugby this year due to injury, he has been named to start at inside centre, while Farrell will wear the No 10 jersey, with George Ford on the bench.
‘We’ve become very well organised in our set piece and have done a lot of good work in Portugal over the past week,’ Jones said. ‘We have put in a new defence system and our attack looks more organised than it was on the South Africa tour.
‘Against South Africa, you have got the physical battle up front and then you have to be tactically smart in how you attack against them. We need to find ways to gain momentum, then once we find momentum, convert that to points.’
England – 15 Elliot Daly, 14 Jack Nowell, 13 Henry Slade, 12 Ben Te’o, 11 Jonny May, 10 Owen Farrell (co-c), 9 Ben Youngs, 8 Mark Wilson, 7 Tom Curry, 6 Brad Shields, 5 George Kruis, 4 Maro Itoje, 3 Kyle Sinckler, 2 Dylan Hartley (co-c), 1 Alec Hepburn.
Subs: 16 Jamie George, 17 Ben Moon, 18 Harry Williams, 19 Charlie Ewels, 20 Zach Mercer, 21 Danny Care, 22 George Ford, 23 Chris Ashton.
Photo: Getty Images
