England happy with Welsh scrum session

Nov 6, 2017 - 6:30 PM George Kruis insists England's forwards resisted the urge to "smash-up" Wales during Monday's unprecedented training session in order to gain an insight into their set piece strength.

The old rivals locked horns in Bristol, completing 12 scrums and 16 line-outs over 40 minutes under the scrutiny of top international referee Nigel Owens, to hone their set-pieces ahead of their upcoming autumn series.

It had been dubbed the 'Battle of Bristol' by England prop Harry Williams and while that description proved inaccurate - the session passed without incident - Eddie Jones' pack were given a valuable work-out.

"There was definitely intent there. I'd say we were professional enough to control ourselves and understand it was a training tool rather than a smash-up on the Monday of a Test week," Kruis said.

"We went in there trying to get a squeeze on and as much out of it as we could. We wanted to win every scrum and wanted the intent, but it also gave ourselves the opportunity to trial a few things and see where we're at.

"It was under Test match intensity, but was a good tool for us. It definitely lets us know where we're at as a pack and has shown us things that maybe we need to work on for this week.

"Because it's happened nice and early in the week, it's given us time to fix up and tweak anything that we need to."

England open their autumn series against Argentina on Saturday before Australia and Samoa visit Twickenham, knowing that come the end of November their record under Jones could stand at 22 wins from 23 Tests.

Source: AAP