England scrum coach Neal Hatley: Training session with Wales was beneficial
England took on their Six Nations rivals in a rare training session to work on their scrums and line-outs on Monday.
England’s unprecedented training session against Wales was ideal preparation for Saturday’s clash with Argentina at Twickenham, according to scrum coach Neal Hatley.
The fierce rivals locked horns in Bristol on Monday morning, completing 12 scrums and 16 line-outs over 40 minutes under the eye of referee Nigel Owens to hone their set-pieces ahead of their autumn series.
The session at Clifton College, which had been dubbed the ‘Battle of Bristol’ by England prop Harry Williams, was considered valuable.
“It was good, very worthwhile. It was good to get live competition early in the week and we gained a lot from it,” Hatley said.
“We want to make training as competitive as possible so the unfamiliarity of it made this session different. Obviously it was against players we don’t come up against week in week out.
“There was a little bit of an edge, but there was nothing serious. Both sides took a lot from it.
“Without sounding too calculating, it was a training aid to help us prepare for Argentina so there was good edge to it.”
When asked which nation gained the upper hand, Hatley replied: “We’ll look at the video and take it from there!
“We got what we wanted to out of it, putting into practise things that we’d been looking at during our training camp in Portugal last week.
“It sets us up nicely to play Argentina, who are a good set-piece team, so in that respect it was handy.”
In an unexpected turn of events, England have yet to rule Elliot Daly out of the series opener against the Pumas.
Daly injured his knee on Champions Cup duty for Wasps and was expected to miss the Tests against Argentina and Australia and potentially return for the climax to the autumn series against Samoa, but he could yet be involved from the start.
England are in the midst of a wing injury crisis having lost Jack Nowell and Jonny May to the treatment room, making Daly’s availability should he be passed fit welcome news for Eddie Jones.
“Elliot is in camp and being assessed. We’ve been pretty busy so we’ll find out more about him later in the day,” Hatley said.
