Watch every second of the 2025 Autumn Nations Series live and on demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\nThe 32-year-old stepped up during this period, guiding England to a pair of wins over Argentina away from home.<\/p>\n
The stats from this game should give the Wallabies a clear idea of what to expect at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham.<\/p>\n
Across the two games, Ford kicked 39 times, 26 of which came outside of the 22, for over 1200 metres combined.<\/p>\n
This included 22 for 755 metres in the first Test, wearing down Argentina for a 35-12 win.<\/p>\n
It leaves Ford comfortable on top for most kicks (25) and metres (734) per game than any other player in Test Rugby over the past 12 months.<\/p>\n
Ford\u2019s boot, combined with the aerial prowess of fullback Freddie Steward, is a lethal combination.<\/p>\n
Steward has shown his ability to burn teams off the kick. Last year, he gained 304 against Bordeaux-Begles in a Champions Cup match, including 240 metres from kick returns, both the highest tallies in a European match since Opta have recorded this data.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an area that the Wallabies have struggled with, especially throughout the Rugby Championship and their last Test against Japan.<\/p>\n
Across those seven games, 31 kicks were retained by opposition sides, with almost half of these coming against the Springboks.<\/p>\n
The reaction also comes after the significant success the Wallabies had in this area last match-up 12 months ago, with Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii particularly damaging.<\/p>\n
The Australians won back four kick-offs in the year in the thrilling extra-time win, including one in the final seconds to set up Max Jorgensen\u2019s winner.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
It was the most a team has ever won back in a tier-one Test in the 2020s as all four were won clean by the talented outside centre, leaping high to allow the Wallabies to counter following England points.<\/p>\n
Whether attacking or not, the inclusion of Tommy Freeman at outside centre will likely seek to counter the effectiveness of Suaalii aerially across the park.<\/p>\n
Freeman has developed as one of the best wingers in England but has shown his versatility in the midfield before, moving there earlier in the year in a win over Wales.<\/p>\n
The triple threat of Ford, Steward and Freeman will leave the Wallabies in little doubt about what to expect on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANALYSIS: The selection of George Ford at flyhalf has tipped England\u2019s gameplan and will have the Wallabies preparing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249976,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,1208,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-249975","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-rugby","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}