England drop Vunipola, Care and Eastmond for Samoa clash

Billy Vunipola, Danny Care and Kyle Eastmond have been dropped from the England squad to face Samoa at Twickenham on Saturday.

Head coach Stuart Lancaster has opted to make changes following the narrow defeats by New Zealand and South Africa and the trio have made way for James Haskell, Richard Wigglesworth and Billy Twelvetrees.

"We always wanted to use these four games to look at options in our squad and Billy, Richard and James have been in great form for their clubs and pressing hard in training," Lancaster said.

Vunipola has paid the price for an error-strewn display in the 31-28 loss to South Africa last Saturday and is likely to be replaced as starting number eight by Ben Morgan.

Care's collapse in form has resulted in his omission from the 23, leaving Wigglesworth and Ben Youngs to battle it out for the scrum-half duties.

Eastmond, meanwhile, was concussed against South Africa and has been unable to train this week, so England have called in Twelvetrees, who has recovered from an ankle problem.

Lancaster, who names his starting XV on Wednesday afternoon, has hinted that he would opt for George Ford at fly-half with Owen Farrell moving to inside centre, a selection that would force Twelvetrees to settle for a spot among the replacements.

Tom Wood survives another week despite an underwhelming autumn, but he could be demoted to the role of offering back row cover from the bench with 51-cap international Haskell picked at blindside flanker.

Flanker Calum Clark and centre Luther Burrell have been overlooked and will return to their club Northampton.

"We're aware that we have to develop and we're working hard to do that. I have every confidence we'll push those teams and get the results."

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