Blood & Mud

STOP PRESS! The England team is not that bad

It's true!  As far as a selection goes, it's better than could have been expected. No Matt Banahan for a start, although Louis Deacon is still on the bench - but you can't have everything. 

Mat Tait returns, and while I have never rated him as highly as some, he holds the distinct advantage of being neither Mike Tindall or Jamie Noon, and the much less psychotic than he used to be Dylan Hartley is starting.  Deacon aside, the bench actually has a bit of dynamism as well.

However, as someone once said: hope is the feeling that comes before someone smashes your gonads with a croquet mallet - or something like that.  The personnel, after all, will be utterly wasted if the England Management Omnishambles have not got the drawing board fully wiped after the autumn.

We shall see; but I'm already looking forward to the game a damn sight more than I was yesterday. 

England: D Armitage (London Irish); M Cueto (Sale Sharks), M Tait (Sale Sharks), R Flutey (Brive), U Monye (Harlequins); J Wilkinson (Toulon), D Care (Harlequins); T Payne (Wasps), D Hartley (Northampton), D Wilson (Bath), S Shaw (Wasps), S Borthwick (Saracens, capt), J Haskell (Stade Francais), L Moody (Leicester), N Easter (Harlequins).

Replacements: S Thompson (Brive), D Cole (Leicester), L Deacon (Leicester), S Armitage (London Irish), P Hodgson (London Irish), T Flood (Leicester), B Foden (Northampton).

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Comments

STOP PRESS! The England team is not that bad

It's true!  As far as a selection goes, it's better than could have been expected. No Matt Banahan for a start, although Louis Deacon is still on the bench - but you can't have everything. 

Mat Tait returns, and while I have never rated him as highly as some, he holds the distinct advantage of being neither Mike Tindall or Jamie Noon, and the much less psychotic than he used to be Dylan Hartley is starting.  Deacon aside, the bench actually has a bit of dynamism as well.

However, as someone once said: hope is the feeling that comes before someone smashes your gonads with a croquet mallet - or something like that.  The personnel, after all, will be utterly wasted if the England Management Omnishambles have not got the drawing board fully wiped after the autumn.

We shall see; but I'm already looking forward to the game a damn sight more than I was yesterday. 

England: D Armitage (London Irish); M Cueto (Sale Sharks), M Tait (Sale Sharks), R Flutey (Brive), U Monye (Harlequins); J Wilkinson (Toulon), D Care (Harlequins); T Payne (Wasps), D Hartley (Northampton), D Wilson (Bath), S Shaw (Wasps), S Borthwick (Saracens, capt), J Haskell (Stade Francais), L Moody (Leicester), N Easter (Harlequins).

Replacements: S Thompson (Brive), D Cole (Leicester), L Deacon (Leicester), S Armitage (London Irish), P Hodgson (London Irish), T Flood (Leicester), B Foden (Northampton).