Monday 20 June 2016 11:27, UK
James Haskell and Jack Nowell remain in contention for the final instalment of England's quest for a glorious series whitewash of Australia.
Head coach Eddie Jones has been able to deliver an upbeat medical bulletin following Saturday's 23-7 victory over the Wallabies, revealing the squad is in "surprisingly good" health despite the physical demands of the second Test in Melbourne.
Haskell, who produced another mighty shift in defence, sustained a foot injury but the openside could yet be involved at Allianz Stadium in the climax to the series.
Nowell sustained a mild concussion in the second Test, but the wing has already passed the 'return to play' protocols and is available for selection.
"It is more of a precaution with Haskell at the moment. He hasn't trained much over the last couple of weeks, but he has an amazing capacity to absorb pain so he's still in contention for the weekend," Jones said.
"Jack has cleared all his protocols so far, so there is no reason why he shouldn't be fine."
Jones stated after England had built an unassailable lead in the series at AAMI Park that some players were running on empty at the end of a season that began a year ago with the build-up to the World Cup.
Changes appeared to be inevitable, but Jones has yet to decide whether he will tinker with his starting XV.
"We had a good recovery session on Monday morning. The boys enjoyed the warm Pacific Ocean and a bit of volleyball on the beach," Jones said.
"It is the third Test of the series so we are going to need energetic, physically aggressive players. The 23 who show they want to play like that are the 23 who are going to play.
"All the players are keen to play. If they weren't keen to play, they wouldn't be here.
"We just have to keep assessing them. We'll look at their energy levels over the next day or two in training."
Jones has urged his Grand Slam champions to put Australia to the sword by delivering a complete performance in Sydney.
"The only thing is we want to play our best 80 minutes this weekend," Jones said.
"Attack-wise, we were reasonable in the first Test. Defensively, we were poor. Set-piece we were good at the line-out and average in the scrum in the first Test.
"In the second Test, our scrum was good, our line-out was average, our defence was outstanding and our attack was almost non-existent.
"So we would like to put together our best 80 because we still haven't seen the best of this team. We are on a learning curve and we want to keep improving.
"Winning 3-0 would mean we are taking another step up. We want to be the best team in the world and winning this series 3-0 would indicate that we have got the right to be the second best team in the world."
