{"id":277010,"date":"2026-02-02T15:41:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T15:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/277010\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T15:41:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T15:41:12","slug":"england-six-nations-team-announcement-live-maro-itoje-on-bench-as-jamie-george-captains-england-vs-wales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/277010\/","title":{"rendered":"England Six Nations team announcement LIVE: Maro Itoje on bench as Jamie George captains England vs Wales"},"content":{"rendered":"

Interviews coming from Gironapublished at 15:21 GMT<\/p>\n

15:21 GMT<\/p>\n

\"\"Chris Jones
BBC rugby union correspondent in Girona<\/p>\n

We’ve just finished speaking to Steve Borthwick and some of the England players here in a rainy Girona.<\/p>\n

Borthwick spoke about Maro Itoje and explained that, for this game, it was best for him to start on the bench given the difficult last few weeks he has had.<\/p>\n

Itoje will provide impact off the bench, with Borthwick expecting a magnificent reception from the Twickenham crowd for the regular skipper.<\/p>\n

We also spoke to Tommy Freeman and Fraser Dingwall, who discussed their midfield combination, their chemistry on and off the pitch, and how best to deal with Henry Pollock.<\/p>\n

Ellis Genge also gave some great insight into his and the team\u2019s ambition in the short, medium and long term. As is tradition, his barber will be in town on Thursday to prepare the squad stylistically for the game.<\/p>\n

Hear the full interviews on the Rugby Union Daily podcast<\/a> which is out first thing tomorrow morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Interviews coming from Gironapublished at 15:21 GMT 15:21 GMT Chris JonesBBC rugby union correspondent in Girona We’ve just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-277010","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}