England will retain their centre partnership of Brad Barritt and Billy Twelvetrees for the match on Sunday afternoon against Ireland at Lansdowne Road.

Stuart Lancaster has opted to use Manu Tuilagi from the bench on Sunday, joining a formidable second wave of England power that includes Courtney Lawes and Dylan Hartley.

Manu Tuilagi had been a human metre-muncher in the Autumn internationals, carrying the ball a massive 42 times at an average of 7.5m per carry. In opting to leave Tuilagi out, what sacrifices might Lancaster have made? And what advantages does his new centre partnership potentially provide?

On Saturday in England’s opening match against Scotland both Barritt and Twelvetrees acquitted themselves well with the debutante notching up a try and 78 metres with ball in hand on the day.

In his 17 test appearances, Tuilagi has been used in a very straightforward way. He runs about three quarters of the time and he does it well, making 6.6m per carry. He almost never kicks, having put boot to ball just three times in those 17 international games.

Looking at all England international matches since June 2008*, there have been 94 centre performances in an England shirt. Tuilagi’s tackle success rate is a decent 87% but it’s a tick below the 90% of all other England centres in that time.

* excludes 13/06/09 tour match in Argentina for which data was unavailable

Billy Twelvetrees’ first cap performance was thrilling, almost Tuilagi-esque. He ran 73% of ball at 4.9m per carry and didn’t kick the ball once. Looking at one cap in isolation can’t tell us a huge amount about a player; looking at the thirteen Aviva Premiership games Twelvetrees has played this season might tell us more. The odd thing about his England debut was that it was very much at odds with how he has played centre for Gloucester this season.

Regular watchers of English top flight rugby will know that Billy Twelvetrees demonstrates many more dimensions to his play than the running merchant seen last weekend. The stats back this up; in league play Twelvetrees kicked 13% of ball and ran just 51%; a far cry from the 0% and 73% of last Saturday.

In contrast, Tuilagi is the very same player for club and country. This season in 12 Premiership and Heineken Cup matches Tuilagi has demonstrated the same skills that he shows on the international stage: kicking seldom, running often and a good rate. His club defence has been poor this season, succeeding in just 78% of tackles. This defensive flaw was also seen in the Autumn internationals where he had just an 81% success rate.

Brad Barritt, in contrast, is a tackling machine. In 13 Premiership and Heineken Cup matches this season he’s missed just four of 92 attempts for a 96% tackle rate. He backed this up in the Autumn with a 93% rate, missing fewer tackles than Tuilagi in over double the number of attempts.

So what of Sunday?

Well the Billy Twelvetrees who played in Twickenham is not the real Billy Twelvetrees; he played more like Manu Tuilagi.

In that vein, it’s far more likely that the young Gloucester man will exercise his kicking boot more often than the zero times he did so last Saturday. This is especially so given Lancaster’s decision to omit such a powerful runner in Tuilagi; perhaps seeing how well Ireland coped with the huge Welsh runners in the second half at the Millenium stadium, Stuart Lancaster has opted for a more creative approach.

Defensively, the partnership is potentially more sound than any involving Tuilagi, who has been somewhat porous this season. But he poses great danger for Ireland if he comes off the bench in the second half.

Gordon D’arcy has struggled with fitness this week. If he should come off he’d be replaced by Keith Earls; the Munsterman has also struggled to shrug off an injury and was responsible for an awful missed tackle last week in Wales. Both Craig Gilroy and Simon Zebo made highlight-reel hits on Leigh Halfpenny and Aaron Shingler respectively, but both were also responsible for missing at least half their tackles.

After an hour of Barritt and Twelvetrees absorbing Irish midfield pressure, with Twelvetrees assisting fly-half Owen Farrell in the tactical kicking game, a fresh and fired-up Tuilagi could come into the fray and cause chaos in the Irish ranks. And that’s what Stuart Lancaster might be hoping will happen on Sunday.

The above piece was also published at www.balls.ie: