Dylan Hartley Warns England Not To Pick A Fight With Wales

England captain Dylan Hartley has told his players not to go down fighting when they train with Wales in Bristol on Monday.

Hartley will pack down against Wales’ Ken Owens when the two countries hold a series of scrum and line-out sessions, ahead of their respective autumn Tests which begin on Saturday.

Wales face Australia in Cardiff, while England host Argentina at Twickenham.

Before then, the nations’ packs will warm-up for their opening autumn internationals by drilling their set-pieces under the gaze of referee Nigel Owens after Wales coach Warren Gatland and England forwards coach Steve Borthwick brokered an arrangement between the camps.

Hartley insists the move from Jones will benefit the players by bringing them out come of their comfort zone, but warned:  “I don’t think we can go down there and have a brawl.

“That would be detrimental and we wouldn’t get anything out of it. It’s being refereed so it’s definitely going to be beneficial for us,” Hartley said.

“Going up against Wales might challenge us differently and make us a bit more resilient and self-reliant.

“It’ll also bring a little bit more edge to the session, kind of heads on. The heads are pretty good when we’re training with England but I can imagine preparing for that session will be different.”

Jones believes the session against Wales will give England a perfect opportunity to improve their set-piece ahead of the autumn international clashes against Argentina, Australia and Samoa.

“It’s a training session but we want them to be 100 per cent. Absolutely 100 per cent,” Jones said.

“We want to be the best scrum in the world and we just feel that when we scrum against each other there’s a certain amount of familiarity.

“We need our scrummaging to go to another level so we want to be challenged in that area. It’s something different.”

England’s forwards will travel to Bristol to train with their Welsh counterparts on Monday, before travelling back to England’s Pennyhill Park training base in the afternoon.

However, Tom Dunn, Nick Isiekwe, Zach Mercer and Sam Simmonds will remain with the rest of the squad, rather than travelling to Bristol.

 

ENGLAND SQUAD

Backs

Mike Brown (Harlequins), Elliot Daly (Wasps), Jonny May (Leicester Tigers), Semesa Rokoduguni (Bath Rugby), Denny Solomona (Sale Sharks), Anthony Watson (Bath Rugby), Danny Care (Harlequins), Owen Farrell (Saracens), George Ford (Leicester Tigers), Piers Francis (Northampton Saints), Jonathan Joseph (Bath Rugby), Alex Lozowski (Saracens), Henry Slade (Exeter Chiefs), Ben Youngs (Leicester Tigers)

Forwards

Tom Curry (Sale Sharks), Charlie Ewels (Bath Rugby), Nathan Hughes (Wasps), Nick Isiekwe (Saracens), Maro Itoje (Saracens), George Kruis (Saracens), Joe Launchbury (Wasps), Courtney Lawes (Northampton Saints), Zach Mercer (Bath Rugby), Chris Robshaw (Harlequins), Sam Simmonds (Exeter Chiefs), Sam Underhill (Bath Rugby), Dan Cole (Leicester Tigers), Tom Dunn (Bath Rugby), Ellis Genge (Leicester Tigers), Jamie George (Saracens), Dylan Hartley (Northampton Saints), Mako Vunipola (Saracens), Harry Williams (Exeter Chiefs)

 

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