Johnny Williams, centre for London Irish, made a welcome return to the starting XV of the team in preparations for the Greene King IPA Championship clash played on Sunday at the Madejski Stadium against Jersey Reds at 2pm.
Williams, who had won the Junior World Cup with England’s Under 20’s during the summer, had been out for two months due to injury but featured in the last Sunday’s game against Jersey Reds.
He was among one of the seven changes made to the squad against the Exiles game where they went on to win, thus going off with 10 league wins out of 10 games.
Just before the break, Williams had come off the bench to feature in their last two weekend 35-24 win over Cornish Pirates. He would be replacing Fergus Mulchrone at inside centre. On the Wing, Joe Cokanasiga would be starting.
Somewhere else at the backline, James Marshall would be making way for Tommy Bell as the former Leicester man hopes to make it a century of points after staying locked on 98 since their win over Yorkshire Carnegie, earlier in the month.
Richard Palframan got the nod at tight-head, while Jerry Sexton, at second row, and Blair Cowan and SenitikiNavalo, at back rows, got the chance to start.
Speaking about the game, Nick Kennedy, Exiles director of rugby had said,
“Jersey will be yet another tough test for us on the back of last week’s trip to Penzance, and we will need to be fully focused on the task in hand.
“Training has been excellent this week and we have had the extra day to prepare for Jersey which is good.
“It’s important that we utilise our rotation system during what is going to be a relentless campaign, and a series of players have the opportunity to impress this weekend.”