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Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got till it’s gone...” In his search for paradise is Eddie Jones in danger of putting up a parking lot?

England’s defeat by Scotland at Murrayfield recently brought into stark focus the problems England have in their back row; ones which without resolution will, at best, severely hamper England’s World Cup hopes. These are not new, but they were writ large in the defeat and should force a reassessment of Jones’s selection policy before it is too late to accommodate changes to England’s game.

The first is that if Billy Vunipola is not fit, England’s prospects are severely diminished, to the point you have to doubt whether they will be able to mount a serious challenge for rugby’s major prize.

Two aspects of Vunipola’s game are world class – his carrying and presence over the loose ball at the breakdown. England have tried Nathan Hughes and Sam Simmonds at No 8 and neither has been able to make the crucial hard yards against defences when they are tasked with taking the ball into set defences. In particular, they do not, as does Vunipola, make ground after the initial contact.