{"id":6434,"date":"2024-11-04T02:54:55","date_gmt":"2024-11-04T02:54:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/england-asher-opoku-fordjour-called-up-to-36-player-squad-to-face-australia\/"},"modified":"2024-11-04T02:54:55","modified_gmt":"2024-11-04T02:54:55","slug":"england-asher-opoku-fordjour-called-up-to-36-player-squad-to-face-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/england-asher-opoku-fordjour-called-up-to-36-player-squad-to-face-australia\/","title":{"rendered":"England: Asher Opoku-Fordjour called up to 36-player squad to face Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"


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England have called-up Sale Sharks prop Asher Opoku-Fordjour to the 36-player squad preparing to face Australia in the Autumn Nations Series.<\/b><\/p>\n

The 20-year-old was a member of England’s Under-20s side which won their age grade World Cup this year.<\/p>\n

Opoku-Fordjour replaces Joe Marler, who has announced his retirement from international rugby<\/a>, while Bath lock Charlie Ewels replaces club team-mate Ted Hill.<\/p>\n

Harlequins prop Marler, 34, called time on his England career after winning 95 caps, while head coach Steve Borthwick previously said his side needs more depth at prop.<\/p>\n

England began their autumn schedule with a narrow 24-22 defeat by New Zealand<\/a> at Allianz Stadium on Saturday.<\/p>\n

They resume their campaign against the Wallabies on 9 November and lock Maro Itoje said the hosts are closing in on a statement win after a run of narrow defeats.<\/p>\n

England have lost three consecutive Tests against the All Blacks after leading in the final quarter on each occasion.<\/p>\n

“We will get there,” said Saracens lock Itoje. “We have to lick our wounds and take our medicine at the moment, but this team is building in a positive direction.<\/p>\n

“I have been part of a few teams and you get a sense of when a team is moving in the right direction.<\/p>\n

“I think we are growing in the right areas of the game, we are aggressive in attack and there is a general feel of confidence and vibe among the players.<\/p>\n

“We have had some agonising losses, but this is a different team to what it was 18 months ago with the way we play, the endeavour we show.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes in the past when we lost, they were clear losses and we were clutching at straws. I don’t feel we are clutching at straws now. We lost, but we’re close.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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England have called-up Sale Sharks prop Asher Opoku-Fordjour to the 36-player squad preparing to face Australia in the Autumn Nations Series. The 20-year-old was a member of England’s Under-20s side which won their age grade World Cup this year. Opoku-Fordjour replaces Joe Marler, who has announced his retirement from international rugby, while Bath lock Charlie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6434"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6436,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6434\/revisions\/6436"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}