England and Scotland have both announced their lineups ahead of Saturday’s Calcutta Cup clash at Twickenham, with Gloucester players Jonny May & Chris Harris called up for their respective countries.
Jonny May looks set to add to his 60 caps for England since making his debut in 2013, becoming the country’s joint second highest try-scorer in 2020.
His teammate Chris Harris will be hopeful of adding to his 16 caps so far for Scotland, with the centre looking to lead Scotland to a first win at Twickenham since 1983.
In other team news, both teams have new centres in their teams, with Ollie Lawrence and Cameron Redpath starting for England and Scotland respectively.
One of the bigger talking points is Owen Farrell’s return to fly half for England, with George Ford dropping to the bench for the first time since the sides 2019’s World Cup quarter-final win against Australia.
Despite calls for two uncapped players in Harry Randall and Paolo Odogwu to be included in the squad neither have made the roster for England.
England Head coach Eddie Jones commented on the challenges with naming his squad, suggesting that a number of players were close to making it into his roster.
“It was difficult to pick the 23 players. We’ve had a really good week of training. It’s been very competitive but I’ve gone with what I feel is the strongest 23 for this week.”
Scotland Head coach Gregor Townsend also had a number of difficult inclusions to make, especially in hooker, with his top two options in Fraser Brown and Stuart McInally both sidelined with neck injuries.
In their stead, Townsend could give debuts to David Cherry who is on the bench, with George Turner the player chosen to start in Brown and McInally’s absence.
Saturday’s match will be the second game of the 2021 Six Nations with Italy hosting France in Rome earlier in the day.