Te’o & Shields ruled out of England-Ireland opener

Ben Te’o and Brad Shields have both been left out of England’s squad for a pivotal Six Nations opener with Ireland.

Eddie Jones’ men visit Dublin on Saturday hoping to end Ireland’s hopes of a second successive Grand Slam in the first week of the tournament.

Each of the last five Six Nations titles have been won by either Ireland (3) or England (2), but whoever tastes defeat at the Aviva Stadium is likely to have an uphill climb to lift the trophy again in 2019.

And Jones will be unable to call on either Worcester Warriors outside centre Te’o or Wasps lock Shields, with side strains seeing them omitted from the 25-man squad.

Manu Tuilagi is expected to take the place of Te’o and make his first Six Nations start in almost six years.

25 players retained for Saturday’s #IREvENG #GuinnessSixNations clash

See who’s in https://t.co/28sJvGArGz pic.twitter.com/XpENaqsSoM

— England Rugby (@EnglandRugby) January 29, 2019

Bath’s Joe Cokanasiga is also unavailable because of a knee injury, with Harlequins back row Jack Clifford having already been ruled out after taking a knock to the head.

Scrum-half Dan Robson could make his international debut after being included in the 25.

“We have Brad Shields, Joe Cokanasiga and Ben Te’o who are not far away from where we want them to be but in a game of this magnitude we need everyone to be 100 per cent so they will stay with us and continue to rehab,” said scrum coach Neal Hatley. “The plan is to have them all fit for France.

“Ben suffered a small side strain in training, he is doing his rehab, is not far away, but as I say everyone needs to be fully fit.

“We have had people running in different positions so we are pretty good at that and we make sure we comprehensively cover all the different permutations of what could happen so it’s not like Ben is the only person who has run at 12 for us.”

Squad in full:

Forwards: Luke Cowan-Dickie, Tom Curry, Ellis Genge, Jamie George, Nathan Hughes, Maro Itoje, George Kruis, Joe Launchbury, Courtney Lawes, Kyle Sinckler, Billy Vunipola, Mako Vunipola, Harry Williams, Mark Wilson.

Backs: Chris Ashton, Mike Brown, Elliot Daly, Owen Farrell (captain), George Ford, Jonny May, Jack Nowell, Dan Robson, Henry Slade, Manu Tuilagi, Ben Youngs.

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