Six Nations 2018: Jonathan Joseph returns in place of Ben Te'o for England vs Wales due to Eddie Jones' 'gut feeling'

Eddie Jones has made two changes to his England side that will take on Wales in the second round of the Six Nations this Saturday, with Jonathan Joseph returning to the side in place of centre Ben Te’o.

The other change is as expected, as Danny Care is handed only his sixth start at scrum-half in the absence of the injured Ben Youngs, who will not play again this championship after rupturing his medial collateral ligament in his left knee during last weekend’s 46-15 victory over Italy – the Leicester Tigers half-back is also unlikely to play again this season.

With Care promoted from the replacements, Saracens scrum-half Richard Wigglesworth is included in the match-day squad for a Test for the first time since the 2015 Rugby World Cup, while Te’o is retained on the bench to fill the void left by Joseph.

Having got their campaign to win a third consecutive Six Nations title for the first time off to a flying start, Jones would not have been blamed for naming an unchanged side beyond the replacement of the unavailable Youngs, but he explained that something told him that Joseph deserved to start ahead of Te’o – who made his first appearance in more than three months last week.

“It’s a gut feeling on my behalf, Ben worked really hard to get back fit (after a lengthy injury lay off), but experience tells me sometimes in their second game back players are a little bit flat,” said Jones.

“JJ [Joseph] has been in good form in training. He’s powerful, quick and will defend well.

“He can do a job for us from the start and Ben will come and give us power and impetus, just as he did last week.”

It means that Jones has elected to make slight changes where Warren Gatland declined, as the Wales head coach stuck with an unchanged XV following the 34-7 victory over Scotland last weekend that sets up this Saturday’s Twickenham encounter as a fascinating clash between two fierce rivals. The only change Gatland made – having named his side on Tuesday – was to bring George North back into the squad among the replacements, and Jones believes that he has an idea on how Wales will look to play this weekend and will attempt to counter that by looking for a repeat performance in the scrum and lineout as well as keeping the visitors at bay defensively.

“We want to be an adaptable team and to be able to play to the conditions, referee and game as sometimes the game controls you,” Jones added.

“Wales will try and play a particular way but in terms of winning the game we want to make sure our set piece is dominant and our defence is ferocious.”

M Brown; A Watson, J Joseph, O Farrell, J May; G Ford, D Care; M Vunipola, D Hartley, D Cole; J Launchbury, M Itoje; C Lawes, C Robshaw, S Simmonds.

Replacements: J George, A Hepburn, H Williams, G Kruis, S Underhill, R Wigglesworth, B Te’o, J Nowell.