England head coach Eddie Jones was correct to include injured prop Mako Vunipola within his World Cup squad, based on Will Greenwood.
While Jack Nowell needed emergency surgery to remove his appendix throughout a warm-weather training camp in Italy vunipola suffered a recurrence of a hamstring injury during last month’s 57-15 win over Ireland.
Regardless of their lack of fitness, the group were both included in England’s 31-man group to the tournament and Greenwood insists that they deserved to go to Japan.
“There are certain players who you have only got to go’get on the plane’ whether you’ve got a knock or never,” Greenwood told Sky Sports News.
“Very infrequently following four warm-up games thus close to a World Cup are you really going to own all 31 players 100 per cent fit ready to compete.
“You don’t want to exclude somebody from the chance of going because of a slight hamstring niggle.”
England’s build-up to the World Cup comprised games from Italy, Ireland and Wales and Greenwood is confident those Exam matches will have provided adequate preparation.
“If you visit and have Test matches against New Zealand and South Africa you may wind up with ten men in Japan with accidents,” said Greenwood.
“So there has always got to be a balance involving an exhaustive physical and mental test but at precisely exactly the same time you don’t wish to sacrifice any players around the altar of 1 per cent,” he explained.
“It is that trade-off between needing to be physically match fit but we want everyone available for choice and rugby poses that issue.”
Danny Care wasn’t chosen despite being fully match, together with New Zealand-born Willi Heinz.
Care has questioned the residency rules however, from 2020, players will need to reside in a country for five decades before representing that nation surrounding global selection.
Greenwood knows why Care feels aggrieved but considers Jones must select the squad potential.
“People will say well’can it be rewarding English gift?’ However Eddie Jones’s job is to win the World Cup not necessarily foster English ability,” he explained.
“I think they’ve made enormous strides in extending it [residency] to five decades. I don’t think that it’s daft for this person to be allowed to represent that country.”
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