« Last couple of days to join the bloodandmud.com 6 Nations Fantasy League Showdown! | Main | bloodandmud.com talks to Keith Wood »
RBS 6 Nations preview: England vs Italy, Twickenham, Sat 15:00
Mauro Bergamasco, as one of the senior Italian players would no doubt have spent this week worried. He wants to get his side off to a good start in 2009 after their steady improvement went into reverse a little last year, but doing this in an opening match against England, at Twickenham as well, was going to prove difficult task, even if England are a bit poor. Imagine his horror when Nick Mallett then told him that he was to be the latest of the coach's strange positional switches; last year it was Andrea Masi from centre to fly-half, this time it is moving Bergamasco from open-side to scrum-half. SCRUM-HALF! It seems the flanker has become a pawn in the latest round of the "I'm crazier than you are" game Mallett and Lievremont appear to be playing.
We wish him all the best of course, and I suppose he has nothing to lose as everyone fully expects this to be a disaster.
England, on the other hand, hope this tournament will move them out of the permanent disaster zone they have been in for a number of years, (before any bloggers pipe up that "hey, we got to a World Cup final recently", fact is that was an aberratio - we were playing terribly before it, during it and after it, and were fortunate that the teams we faced seemed to drop to our level for a few weeks), and starting with Harry Ellis and Andy Goode as the half-backs does not give much hope. There is at least the appearance of the Armitage brothers and the potentially explosive Foden off the bench to look forward to. England should win, but I don't expect it to be either easy or convincing,
b&m.com prediction - England by 7
Spotter's badge - Harry Ellis mouthing "What the fuck are you doing there?!" at Mauro Bergamaso for the first 15 minutes of the game
TEAMS:
ENGLAND: D Armitage (London Irish); P Sackey (Wasps), M Tindall (Gloucester), R Flutey (Wasps), M Cueto (Sale Sharks); A Goode (Brive), H Ellis (Leicester); A Sheridan (Sale Sharks), L Mears (Bath), P Vickery (Wasps), S Borthwick (Saracens, capt), N Kennedy (London Irish), J Haskell (Wasps), S Armitage (London Irish), N Easter (Harlequins).
Replacements: D Hartley (Northampton), J White (Leicester), T Croft (Leicester), J Worsley (Wasps), B Foden (Northampton), S Geraghty (London Irish), M Tait (Sale Sharks),
ITALY: Masi (Biarritz); Robertson (Viadana), Canale (Clermont Auvergne), Garcia (Calvisano), Mirco Bergamasco (Stade Francais); Marcato (Treviso), Mauro Bergamasco (Stade Francais); Ongaro (Saracens), Perugini (Toulouse), Castrogiovanni (Leicester), Dellape (Toulon), Bortolami (Gloucester), Sole (Viadana), Zanni (Calvisano), Parisse (Stade Francais).
Replacements: Festuccia (Racing Metro Paris), Nieto (Gloucester), Reato (Rovigo), J-F Montauriol (Venezia), Toniolatti (Capitolina), McLean (Calvisano), Pratichetti (Calvisano).
TweetWhy not subscribe to Blood and Mud? You can get all our updates fresh in your inbox via email and add us to your favourite feedreader. You can also follow us on Twitter.
Like this this post? Why not like bloodandmud.com on facebook and tell your friends?
February 5, 2009 in England, Italy, Six Nations 2009 | Permalink
