Centres of attention as England face Australia

LONDON : With only a positional shuffle in an otherwise unchanged team facing Australia on Saturday, England's midfield, and the exciting young centre they will be up against, were top of the agenda for assistant coach Richard Wigglesworth on Thursday.

Starved of ball, England's Ollie Lawrence was unable to make his usual punching holes in the defeat by New Zealand and has been shifted to outside centre, swapping with Henry Slade, who is expected to act as a second playmaker alongside flyhalf Marcus Smith.

Wigglesworth described it as a "slight tweak" and said the two centres were already quite interchangeable.

"We didn’t have the ball much at the weekend," Wigglesworth said of the All Black defeat where England kicked much of their possession.

"We know he’s (Lawrence) a great strike runner for us but it wasn’t clean. We’re trying to get him on the ball in as much space as possible in transition. We missed a few chances to do that and hopefully we’ll get more opportunities and we won’t miss them.

"I’m sure Ollie will get his hands on the ball more this weekend, and if he doesn’t it won’t be through a lack of trying."

Lining up for Australia at outside centre will be 21-year-old rugby league convert Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii, who will be playing his first senior union match.

"It will be really interesting won’t it?," Wigglesworth said. "I don’t think Joe Schmidt, the world-class coach that he is, puts him in unless he’s ready.

"He’s played at school and has been ready for this move for a while. He’s obviously an incredible athlete and talent, which is why he’s come over with the reputation and the price tag he's got.

"We’ll look at him in his rugby league. Kev (Sinfield) will give us a good insight there and we’ll make sure we do our