England call up Iyogun and Cunningham-South as injuries bite after Springbok hammering

England have been forced into two squad changes ahead of their Nations Championship fixture against Fiji at Hill Dickinson Stadium in Liverpool on Saturday, with Northampton Saints loosehead prop Emmanuel Iyogun and Harlequins back-row Chandler Cunningham-South called up to replace the injured Beno Obano and Cadan Murley.

Obano had featured from the bench in the final 25 minutes of England’s 45-21 defeat to South Africa at Ellis Park last Saturday, playing through to the final whistle with no apparent issue. However, an undisclosed injury has since emerged that will rule him out this weekend and potentially the following fixture against Argentina in Santiago del Estero.

Murley’s absence was flagged sooner. The winger left the Ellis Park pitch after 55 minutes, and head coach Steve Borthwick confirmed post-match that he had sustained a shoulder injury, though the full extent remains unclear.

Iyogun arrives in the squad fresh from starting in Northampton’s Gallagher Premiership final victory over Exeter Chiefs. He had narrowly missed out on the original squad selection, with Obano preferred, but now stands to earn his first England cap against Fiji.

Cunningham-South’s inclusion is not a like-for-like replacement for Murley. The Harlequins back-row is expected to add physicality to an England pack that struggled in key phases against the Springboks, even if the performance was not uniformly poor across the full 80 minutes.

England’s back three has already been reshaped ahead of this fixture. Sale Sharks winger Tom Roebuck joined the squad earlier in the week after George Furbank, who had originally been named to start against South Africa, required an appendix operation in the days before the match. With Tommy Freeman a candidate to shift from outside centre to the wing, the coaching staff may have felt wing cover was adequate — though Northampton’s George Hendy could consider himself unfortunate to have been overlooked again.

The cumulative effect of these changes leaves England with a noticeably different look from the squad that travelled to Johannesburg, as Borthwick’s side attempt to respond to a chastening defeat and build momentum in the Nations Championship.