England will continue their pursuit of a record-breaking third consecutive Six Nations title without Ben Youngs after the scrum-half was ruled out for the rest of the season with a knee injury.
Youngs was taken off on a stretcher 10 minutes into England’s 46-15 win against Italy on Sunday and a scan on Monday afternoon confirmed he has ruptured the MCL ligament in his left knee. He could be heard screaming out on pain on the pitch and even before England confirmed he was set to be out of action for four months, Eddie Jones had added Richard Wigglesworth to his 32-man squad to prepare for the visit of Wales on Saturday.
It is a blow for England and for Youngs, who has started 18 of 24 Tests under Jones and who must now be considered a doubt for the summer tour of South Africa. He will be further assessed by a surgeon this week and joins Billy Vunipola and Elliot Daly as first-choice England players ruled out through injury. For Wigglesworth, however, it is the chance to relaunch an international career that appeared over after the 2015 World Cup.
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Danny Care is expected to start against Wales but Wigglesworth will be part of the matchday 23, nearly two-and-a-half years since winning his last cap against Uruguay – England’s last match under Stuart Lancaster. The 34-year-old was last involved with England at the pre‑season training camp in August but Jones has only ever utilised Youngs and Care in his 24 matches in charge, apart from the three minutes Jack Maunder played against Argentina over the summer.
The Saracens scrum-half joined the squad at Pennyhill Park on Monday, along with the Exeter hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie. Nathan Hughes has also been called into camp for an assessment on his knee injury as England took the unusual step of holding a training session on Monday with a six-day turnaround before hosting Wales.
“We’re going to arrive in a slightly different pattern that I’ve found successful in the past to get teams to recover and by Saturday we’ll be flying,” Jones said.
The head coach praised his side’s scrummaging against Italy and believes the live session against Wales in Bristol in November was behind the upturn in England’s set-piece performance. “They’ve got stronger, they’ve got more flexible so they can scrum lower. We’ve prioritised it by having the scrum session against Wales in November and the possibility of having another one sooner rather than later.”
Neal Hatley is England’s scrum coach but he has been assisted by Marc dal Maso, the former France hooker who worked under Jones with Japan. “He’s a crazy scientist,” Jones said. “He’s just got the picture of the perfect scrum in his head. [Neal Hatley] works out whether [his ideas] are good with the players and if it’s good then we do it and it adds to the scrum.”