Blow for England as Lawes and Hill are ruled out of Scotland clash

England’s plans for the Calcutta Cup collision in Edinburgh on Saturday have been dealt a heavy double blow with the captain, Courtney Lawes, and the lock Jonny Hill both confirmed absentees through injury. The head coach, Eddie Jones, will now have to find an alternative captain and fill two more sizeable holes in his already reshuffled team to face Scotland at Murrayfield.

Neither Lawes nor Hill has been able to train fully this week because of concussion and a stress fracture of the leg respectively and Jones has now accepted he must look elsewhere. The absence of Lawes, who was replaced after taking a blow in the second half of Northampton’s game against Ulster this month, means the captaincy is now likely to pass to Sale’s Tom Curry or, conceivably, Exeter’s Luke Cowan-Dickie.

With Owen Farrell, Manu Tuilagi and Jonny May already sidelined before a significant game for both sides, it leaves Jones uncomfortably short of experience on the eve of the Six Nations championship. While Joe Marler is now back from his period of Covid isolation, either Bath’s Charlie Ewels or Northampton’s Nick Isiekwe is now likely to start in the second row with Leicester’s uncapped Ollie Chessum a potential bench candidate.

Raffi Quirke, Joe Heyes, Luke Northmore, Alfie Barbeary, Adam Radwan, Orlando Bailey, Louis Lynagh have also been cut from the enlarged training squad, leaving Mark Atkinson and Harry Randall as likely matchday squad members for a game that will test England’s depth and resolve.

“The two things that have been really spoken about are the resilience of the team and how the team rallies around each other in adversity,” the scrum coach Matt Proudfoot said.

The weather is also set to be a sizeable factor, with heavy rain