Brendan Gallagher: Come on Eddie, show some brotherly love and play Billy plus Mako Vunipola from the start

England's Mako Vunipola (C) in action Mandatory Credit: Action Images / Andrew Boyers
Fe'ao Vunipola and his wife the Rev Iesinga Vunipola are always proud of their sons whatever the day of the week and regardless of whether they are playing rugby for or tending to the hog roast in their back garden.
But yesterday was pretty special by any standards and parental joy was surely overflowing. Billy was rightly awarded the official RBS MoM champers but Mako, even though only coming on as replacement in the 48th minute, must have run him close.
Together they represented everything that was good and encouraging about England's performance, bringing an energy and bite to proceedings and an ability to go up to another level when most needed after the break.
Mako immediately added extra solidity to the England scrum and upped the intensity with his big hits and physical presence in the contact area. Nobody who has been watching this season will be remotely surprised at that and you do rather wonder what he has to do warrant a starting place with England.
His crowning glory, though, was a beautifully deft pass when it was needed most in the immediate build-up to Jack Nowell's vital try.
It's all very well big forwards trucking the ball up the middle and making the hard yards but unless they are careful those same forwards can be a liability in the wide channels and clutter the place up.
Not Mako yesterday.
The way he fixed his would-be tackler John Hardie by stepping inside a fraction before releasing with a wraparound ball was consummate, worthy of any centre.
It was a flash of those skills we saw in abundance at the from the Southern Hemisphere tyros and it was reassuring to see that some individuals up here in the North also possess that skillset. Now we just want to see them displayed more often.
Mako has experienced a curious international career thus far. He has 30 England and Test appearances to his name yet has started just six internationals. He's much too good and influential for that.
Yes, at the dawn of his Test career, his scrummaging wasn't quite the finished article but Mako is much improved now and has been the form loosehead this season, no question.
For a while there was also a question mark about his overall fitness but, rather like Billy, he has worked hard on that. And with mass replacements early or midway through the second half there is rarely any need for a prop to go the full 80.
Mako, right, has been labelled and impact player which I always find a curious term. The greatest impact Mako could make for England is to start and give an eyeballs-out hour of excellence, in the tight in the loose.
Meanwhile, younger brother Billy was at his very best yesterday. Here is a man who has really worked at his game. One of the more positive legacies of the Lancaster regime is that after Billy regularly started to run out of steam he was ordered to make a concerted effort to get really fit.
He took that on board to the extent that he played every minute of last year's for England and was again going like a train at the end yesterday. Indeed he looked like he was good for another 80 if asked.
Whoever had taken control of his conditioning should take a bow but mainly it must be down to Billy himself, honesty assessing the one glaring weakness in his game and taking step to rectify the situation.
Vunipola the younger doesn't make those eye-catching 15-20 yard bursts and off-loads like some of the backrow gazelles in but he is second to none in making the most torrid of hard yards in close quarters with two or three defenders hanging on for dear life as they try and bring the big man to earth.
He never, ever goes backwards, and when Billy is in possession everybody in the England team has half a second more to get to the breakdown in support than is usual. He gives his side the luxury of virtually guaranteed recycled possession when he takes the ball in.
So yesterday was a red letter day in the Vunipola household and Jones didn't hesitate to single out both for praise. The next development now must, however, be to get both on the pitch together for the maximum number of minutes.
What with Billy coming off early and Mako going on late in recent seasons we rarely see them in tandem for long yet my memory of the few times that has occurred has been that together they usually get England firing on all four.
They might be devoted to each other but inter-brother rivalry is normally the fiercest of all and they spark off the best in each other. England will be benefit greatly if Jones gets them bending their backs in unison more regularly.

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