Centre Te’o back for England against Italy

CentreBen Te’o will play his first England Test for almost a year and hisfirst rugby of any sort for more than three months after overcoming anankle injury to be included in the team named by Eddie Jones to faceItaly in Rome tomorrow.After featuring for the British and IrishLions in New Zealand last summer, the hard-running Te’o played only ahandful of games for his club Worcester before suffering the injury inOctober that required the insertion of a plate.After extensiverehabilitation he has clearly done enough in the England camp to impressJones, and is preferred for the Six Nations opener to usual outsidecentre Jonathan Joseph to partner Owen Farrell tomorrow, winning hisninth England cap but making only his second start.In the absence ofinjured duo Billy Vunipola and Nathan Hughes, Sam Simmonds wins afourth cap at number eight, with Chris Robshaw and Courtney Lawes eitherside of him in the back row.“He is a good young kid, he does thesimple things well, he runs hard, tackles hard, works hard,” Jones saidof the 23-year-old Simmonds, whom three months ago he described as toosmall to be an international number eight. “He is a humble boy, he’sreally fitted into the team well and his enthusiasm for ball carrying isgoing to be important on Sunday.”Mike Brown retains the fullbackjersey, with Anthony Watson and Jonny May on the wings. With Joe Marlersuspended and Ellis Genge, Matt Mullan and Beno Obano all injured,uncapped prop Alec Hepburn is named among the replacements.Jones hasalways admired the hole-punching ability of rugby league convert Te’obut the New Zealand-born, part-Samoan 31-year-old has had to workovertime to get back into Test-match shape after such a long lay-off.Asevidence of his commitment he spent a lot of his own money to fund asix-week rehabilitation course in Brisbane, which included the extensiveuse of a cryotherapy ice machine. “He’s a very experienced player, heknows his body,” Jones said on Thursday.“He went to Australia withtrusted physios and has come back in super nick and is definitely readyto play a significant part of the game.“He’s got a big match demeanour, he doesn’t get too excited or too disappointed and gets on with the next play.”Te’o’sonly previous England start was also against Italy last year when theyhad something of a scare at Twickenham when they struggled to deal withthe Italians’ surprise “no ruck” tactics before coming from behind athalftime to emerge 36-15 winners.That took their tally to 23 wins from 23 games against Italy, averaging 40 points a game.Englandwill expect to make it 24 tomorrow in the first step in their bid tobecome the first team to win the Five/Six Nations championship outrightthree years in a row.Team: 15-Mike Brown, 14-Anthony Watson,13-Ben Te’o, 12 Owen Farrell, 11-Jonny May, 10-George Ford, 9-BenYoungs, 1-Mako Vunipola, 2-Dylan Hartley, 3-Dan Cole, 4-Joe Launchbury,5-Maro Itoje, 6-Courtney Lawes, 7-Chris Robshaw, 8-Sam SimmondsReplacements:16-Jamie George, 17-Alec Hepburn, 18-Harry Williams, 19-George Kruis,20-Sam Underhill, 21-Danny Care, 22-Jonathan Joseph, 23-Jack Nowell