England XV v France XV

[fivepointer]

An England XV will host a France XV in an uncapped match at Allianz Stadium on Saturday, 21 June.

The game will act as a warm-up for England's three-Test summer tour of Argentina and the United States, while France are scheduled to play a three-match series in New Zealand.

Players involved in the English Premiership final on 14 June and those selected for the British and Irish Lions training squad will not be involved.

France will also be without players involved in their domestic Top 14 play-offs.

It follows an announcement last month by the French rugby union, which said it would not select players competing in the Top 14 final for the national team's summer fixtures.

"This game presents an exciting opportunity to see some of the rising stars of the game in action," said England head coach Steve Borthwick.

"It's always an incredible occasion when England faces France, and we're looking forward to creating a memorable experience for everyone involved.

"The match will be a valuable opportunity for the players to test their skills against a tough opponent and strengthen their chances for tour selection."

[Oakboy]

For once, are we on a par with France in terms of strength in depth? Our 2nd XV should be up with theirs.

This sort of fixture and the 'A' matches are significant for those players not in Borthwick's usual squad, especially when considering the weakness of his bench selections.

[p/d]

Be ideal if the prem final was Newcastle v Leicester. Then, at least, we wouldn't miss out on selecting some young talented players

[Captainhaircut]

Final is likely Bath v Saracens I guess. Certainly what the bookies think. Bristol in with a strong shout particularly with harder grounds in play off time. Could be something like:

Baxter
Langdon
AOF
Batley
Chessum
CCS
Pollock
Fisilau
JVP
FSmith
Dingwall
Beard
Sleightholme
Roebuck
Furbank

Might not be the worst game to finally have a little look at Steward at centre.

[FKAS]

Be ideal if the prem final was Newcastle v Leicester. Then, at least, we wouldn't miss out on selecting some young talented players

Heyes, Carnduff, Ilione, Woodward, Kelly, OHC?

Redshaw and yeah ok Falcons have been picked dry.

I'd hope for this one we'll look to give some guys who are on the fringe of making the summer squad a chance to play their way on or off the tour.

It's an uncapped game so not point selecting to secure.

[Scrumhead]

I was just thinking about the summer tour and realised I’d totally missed this one and the USA fixture.

Why isn’t it an A game?

[Captainhaircut]

Not sure why it’s not an A game. Probably some element of red tape preventing it.

Presume even if available we won’t pick players selected for lions. Would make sense to just pick the same side that would likely play the Argentina tests- something like the below maybe? Missing a lineout caller I guess but would be interesting in terms of second row ballast with back row tyros. Wouldn’t be against IFW playing left wing- he has the ability to hunt for the ball and therefore might not be as impacted by playing on the wrong side?

Baxter
LCD
Heyes
Martin
CCS
Kenningham
BCurry
Pollock
Quirke
Ford
Dingwall
Beard
IFW/Muir/Murley/Sleightholme/OHC
roebuck
Furbank

Rodd/Aof
Langdon
Afo/AOF
batley/clark/coles/lockett
Pearson
Fisilau
JVP
Hendy

[Scrumhead]

See that’s more or less the opposite of what I’d do.

I’d be using it as an A game in all but name to maybe decide a couple of final places for Argentina.

I doubt IFW will be back in time and even if he is, it might make more sense to give him the extra recovery time.

And please, please, please let’s not start referring to CCS as a lock. I don’t want to encourage that narrative at all.

[Captainhaircut]

See that’s more or less the opposite of what I’d do.

I’d be using it as an A game in all but name to maybe decide a couple of final places for Argentina.

I doubt IFW will be back in time and even if he is, it might make more sense to give him the extra recovery time.

And please, please, please let’s not start referring to CCS as a lock. I don’t want to encourage that narrative at all.

So we use CCS at lock once, get probably the best performance we have seen from and then never revisit it again? Even in a nothing game like this?

[fivepointer]

Probably a bit of mix n match with the 1st Argentina test 14 days later.

Paul Brown-Bampoe is someone i'd quite like to see involved.

[Puja]

I was just thinking about the summer tour and realised I’d totally missed this one and the USA fixture.

Why isn’t it an A game?

I'd imagine because this is meant to be a money-spinning Twickenham game and "England A" doesn't sell tickets because pople know they're watching the 2nds, whereas England XV gives the impression to a casual viewer of a first team. They don't want it to be a capped game as that will have an impact on the rankings (with the RWC draw this year) so this is the compromise.

Only major downside is that definition will mean it won't be a capture game. Not that I think we've got anyone we particularly need to call dibs on right now, but we said that about White and Tompkins, both of whom turned out to be quite useful at international level.

And please, please, please let’s not start referring to CCS as a lock. I don’t want to encourage that narrative at all.

I'd be interested in getting him there more regularly. He's a big and powerful carrier, excellent in the lineout, can clearly scrummage - why would we not want him as an additional option in our second row given our paucity of options behind the big three?! He was a lock/6 hybrid when he was coming through at LI, so it's not like picking a flank at centre or anything - get him interested in playing there and get Quins to play him there *and they're hardly overflowing with locks either) and he could be like a new player for us.

Puja

[Banquo]

I was just thinking about the summer tour and realised I’d totally missed this one and the USA fixture.

Why isn’t it an A game?

I'd imagine because this is meant to be a money-spinning Twickenham game and "England A" doesn't sell tickets because pople know they're watching the 2nds, whereas England XV gives the impression to a casual viewer of a first team. They don't want it to be a capped game as that will have an impact on the rankings (with the RWC draw this year) so this is the compromise.

Only major downside is that definition will mean it won't be a capture game. Not that I think we've got anyone we particularly need to call dibs on right now, but we said that about White and Tompkins, both of whom turned out to be quite useful at international level.

And please, please, please let’s not start referring to CCS as a lock. I don’t want to encourage that narrative at all.

I'd be interested in getting him there more regularly. He's a big and powerful carrier, excellent in the lineout, can clearly scrummage - why would we not want him as an additional option in our second row given our paucity of options behind the big three?! He was a lock/6 hybrid when he was coming through at LI, so it's not like picking a flank at centre or anything - get him interested in playing there and get Quins to play him there *and they're hardly overflowing with locks either) and he could be like a new player for us.

Puja

…and play Marcus at 15, obvs

[Stom]

I was just thinking about the summer tour and realised I’d totally missed this one and the USA fixture.

Why isn’t it an A game?

I'd imagine because this is meant to be a money-spinning Twickenham game and "England A" doesn't sell tickets because pople know they're watching the 2nds, whereas England XV gives the impression to a casual viewer of a first team. They don't want it to be a capped game as that will have an impact on the rankings (with the RWC draw this year) so this is the compromise.

Only major downside is that definition will mean it won't be a capture game. Not that I think we've got anyone we particularly need to call dibs on right now, but we said that about White and Tompkins, both of whom turned out to be quite useful at international level.

And please, please, please let’s not start referring to CCS as a lock. I don’t want to encourage that narrative at all.

I'd be interested in getting him there more regularly. He's a big and powerful carrier, excellent in the lineout, can clearly scrummage - why would we not want him as an additional option in our second row given our paucity of options behind the big three?! He was a lock/6 hybrid when he was coming through at LI, so it's not like picking a flank at centre or anything - get him interested in playing there and get Quins to play him there *and they're hardly overflowing with locks either) and he could be like a new player for us.

Puja

…and play Marcus at 15, obvs

Well, if Northampton will swap Fin for Jarrod Evans, I'm sure we'd be very happy with that...

[Mikey Brown]

Obviously it would be incredible if he could bring all his same strengths while doing the nuts and bolts of a lock, but it feels like a big ask longer term. I don’t know if he’d expect to push ahead of Itoje, Chessum or Martin when they’re all fit, though that doesn’t seem to be all that regular anyway.

I feel we’d inevitably get less of his carrying and tackling. Maybe if we’re persisting with Toms and Bens on the flanks it would be a nice balance to have him do more tight carrying though.

It sure would be nice to fit CCS, Kenningham, Evans and Dombrandt into the Quins starting side.

[Puja]

Obviously it would be incredible if he could bring all his same strengths while doing the nuts and bolts of a lock, but it feels like a big ask longer term. I don’t know if he’d expect to push ahead of Itoje, Chessum or Martin when they’re all fit, though that doesn’t seem to be all that regular anyway.

I feel we’d inevitably get less of his carrying and tackling. Maybe if we’re persisting with Toms and Bens on the flanks it would be a nice balance to have him do more tight carrying though.

It sure would be nice to fit CCS, Kenningham, Evans and Dombrandt into the Quins starting side.

I'd agree that he won't be able to bring all of his strengths that you see from him on the flank, but I think he'd be able to bring a lot of them, as well as bringing some new ones if he is as solid in the scrum as he appeared on Saturday.

Would agree that he'd have a challenge to get past Itoje, Chessum, and Martin, but I think he'd have a chance if he committed to it and, let's face it, Martin's continuously managing his knee and Chessum's hardly been bulletproof, so he'll get games even if he doesn't surpass them. Plus it's not like he's without competition in the backrow either.

Puja

[jngf]

Obviously it would be incredible if he could bring all his same strengths while doing the nuts and bolts of a lock, but it feels like a big ask longer term. I don’t know if he’d expect to push ahead of Itoje, Chessum or Martin when they’re all fit, though that doesn’t seem to be all that regular anyway.

I feel we’d inevitably get less of his carrying and tackling. Maybe if we’re persisting with Toms and Bens on the flanks it would be a nice balance to have him do more tight carrying though.

It sure would be nice to fit CCS, Kenningham, Evans and Dombrandt into the Quins starting side.

I'd agree that he won't be able to bring all of his strengths that you see from him on the flank, but I think he'd be able to bring a lot of them, as well as bringing some new ones if he is as solid in the scrum as he appeared on Saturday.

Would agree that he'd have a challenge to get past Itoje, Chessum, and Martin, but I think he'd have a chance if he committed to it and, let's face it, Martin's continuously managing his knee and Chessum's hardly been bulletproof, so he'll get games even if he doesn't surpass them. Plus it's not like he's without competition in the backrow either.

Puja

I would actually say there’s a good case for developing CCS into both an 8 backup and lock backup. My one question is mobility wise is he such a natural fit for flanker? ( If played with a looser 8 option like Dombrandt or Earl maybe, less so alongside T Willis at 8).

[loudnconfident]

Tickets from £25 adult/£10 junior. Not bad value and I've bought one