Haskell left out as Solomona gets another England shot

Wasps flanker James Haskell has been left out of England's squad for their first November international against Argentina at Twickenham, but Denny Solomona makes the cut.

Haskell was called up to the British and Irish Lions following an injury to Billy Vunipola, but he did not play any of the Tests in the drawn series against New Zealand.

Flankers Tom Curry and Sam Underhill, who impressed during the June tour to Argentina, have retained their places, while Sam Simmonds could earn his first cap.

Sale Sharks wing Solomona has been afforded another chance after he was sent home early from a pre-season training camp over "team culture issues".

Head coach Eddie Jones is looking forward to mixing the talent of the returning Lions with those who have been retained from the previous internationals.

"We haven't had a lot of the players since the end of the Six Nations, we've got players coming back from the Argentina tour as well as the Lions, so putting those two groups together along with the spirit and passion of the spectators at Twickenham is exciting," said Jones.

"What you should expect to see is a team that is continually improving, there is nothing specific in our game that we have been working on other than we want to keep on improving.

"We want to be tactically adaptable, we want to be physically robust and they are things that we have a short amount of time to work on.

"It's massively important to get the players back together and working on playing for England.

"They've all been playing for their clubs and they all play a variety of styles and have a different philosophy of how they are conditioned.

"We've got close to 10 first-choice players out but that gives us a chance to build on our depth and gives some young guys an opportunity to put their best foot forward and that is an exciting time for us."

Zach Mercer and Marcus Smith have been included as apprentices, meaning they will train with the squad but not be considered for matchday selection.

 

England squad in full: 

Forwards: Dan Cole, Tom Dunn, Ellis Genge, Jamie George, Dylan Hartley, Matt Mullan, Mako Vunipola, Harry Williams, Tom Curry, Charlie Ewels, Nathan Hughes, Nick Isiekwe, Maro Itoje, George Kruis, Joe Launchbury, Courtney Lawes, Zach Mercer, Chris Robshaw, Sam Simmonds, Sam Underhill.

Backs: Mike Brown, Elliot Daly, Jonny May, Denny Solomona, Anthony Watson, Danny Care, Owen Farrell, George Ford, Piers Francis, Jonathan Joseph, Alex Lozowski, Henry Slade, Marcus Smith, Ben Youngs.