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Hit and welcome to Telegraph Sport’s Live coverage of the Fall Nations Cup final between England and France in Twickenham, where 2,000 fans will host English rugby for the first time since March.
Eddie Jones’s team has suffered a setback, however, after prop Mako Vunipola was ruled out with an Achilles problem on Saturday.
Vunipola suffered the injury in the last group match against Wales a week ago and, having struggled during practice this week, has lost his career to be fit for the Twickenham showdown.
Ellis Genge is promoted from the bench to the starting XV with Joe Marler filling the loose head spot between replacements.
Meanwhile, France’s head coach Fabien Galthie insists his team is ready for an unmatched mismatch in experience as they try to defy all expectations by defeating England today.
The visitors’ starting lineup is just 68 games, 30 of which are provided by winger Brice Dulin, with five players making just their second international appearance.
Against them, in the greatest disparity in the history of the event, is the most experienced England team of all time that contains 813 matches and parades 13 survivors of the XV that faced South Africa in the final of the World Cup. World of last fall.
Even France coach Raphael Ibáñez understands why the event is being seen as a “farce”, but Galthie knows that his dark side must learn fast as they aim for victory that will show that 2020 has been a year of revival. French.
“We will be ready, I can assure you that we will be ready,” Galthie said.
“When we started the year, we wanted France to once again be among the world’s top nations and we wanted to be contenders for the title.
“We were joint leaders of the Six Nations and now we are competing for the Fall Nations Cup title.
“These inexperienced players needed to learn fast and they have been learning fast.”
Galthie’s options have been undermined by an agreement reached between the French Rugby Federation and the top 14 clubs that limits each player’s choice to a maximum of three times in the six autumn games.
It means Les Bleus are now in their third incarnation of the campaign, complete with a third scrum half captain Baptiste Couilloud.
There are no survivors from the team that sent England to their only loss of the year in Paris in February and a total of 25 leading players are unavailable.
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