Autumn Nations Series: England confirm they will wear names on shirts to ‘bring fans closer’ to players

England are set to have names on the back of players’ shirts in their Autumn Nations Series fixtures, which starts against Argentina next week.

Following in the footsteps of other sports such as football, the Red Rose have opted to trial the move in an attempt to help promote the sport to viewers.

England will therefore have their names above the numbers for the opening game at Twickenham on November 6, the Rugby Football Union confirmed.

Promote players to fans

Ellis Genge, Jack Nowell and Marcus Smith posed with their new shirts at the training camp in Jersey, where England are preparing for the four Tests.

“We are delighted to be featuring player names on the back of England shirts for our men’s international Test matches this autumn,” said RFU chief executive officer, Bill Sweeney.

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“We hope this will lead the way for us to consider names on shirts to further promote our world class England international players participating in other international tournaments across the men’s and women’s game.

“While fans and players will always take ultimate pride in flying the flag and wearing the Rose to support England rugby teams, we think player names on shirts may have the potential to bring fans closer to the international stars of our game and we look forward to seeing the reaction to this initiative.”

Following the Pumas clash, England will take on Japan (Saturday, November 12), New Zealand (Saturday, November 19) and South Africa (Saturday, November 26).

Scotland to follow suit

England are reportedly not going to be alone in having names on the back of shirts this autumn as The Times wrote on Thursday that Scotland will do likewise.

Scotland begin their Autumn Nations Series against Australia on Saturday, with Gregor Townsend’s men keen to make it four wins in a row against the Wallabies.

Much of the talk this week has centred around Townsend’s decision to leave Racing 92 fly-half Finn Russell out of his squad for the end-of-year internationals, with Blair Kinghorn set to play in the number 10 jersey for the majority of their games.

After Saturday’s fixture, Scotland will face off with Fiji on Saturday, November 5, New Zealand on Sunday, November 13 and Argentina on Saturday, November 19.