England's Key Battles

France beat England 12-10 on a rain soaked evening in Paris to clinch their ninth Grand Slam.

However England came close to ruining the party, and would have won the game if they hadn't missed a couple of scoring chances.

But there is still plenty to smile about if you're an England fan.

OK, so England should have scored at least one more try.  It's also true that Martin Johnson's men were unable to convert their lion's share of possesion into match-winning points. 

But despite the difficult conditions England showed flashes of brilliance which have been sadly missing from their previous performances in the tournament.

Ben Foden scored a sensational try after five minutes, when England quickly worked the ball through several pairs of hands and exposed France's half-arsed defence.

Unfortunately Chris Ashton kicked away a prime try-scoring chance, but other than that he made a solid debut.  Mike Tindall came back from nowhere and put in a great performance.  In fact, England's backline looked much more threatening as a whole.  There were still problems at scrum time, with prop Dan Cole looking a bit shaky and hooker Dylan Hartley was a little inconsistent.

However, as an England fan, I feel much happier about their performance.  I just hope Martin Johnson remembers how successful the Ben Foden/Chris Ashton experiment was come the summer tour.

All that aside,  during the game I noticed a few key battles which I'd like to draw your attention to:


Martin Johnson 0 v 1 Crazy French Lady

Or Raphael Ibanez's mother-in-law to use her correct title.  The England coach really had his work cut out, as Ibanez's rather vocal relative let Johnno know exactly what she felt about his team.

"Sit DOWN!"

Brian Moore 1 v 0 Referee Bryce Lawrence

Beware rugby officials everywhere.  Brian Moore, ex-hooker and now BBC pundit, is ready to hunt you down.  The former England front row is now a fully qualified referee - and don't we know it.  To give Brian his dues, he was right when he called Bryce's performance "below average".  The ref got a couple of blindingly obvious decisions wrong, and Moore duly savaged him like a rabid dog.

Martin Johnson 1 v 0 Bryce Lawrence

During the first half, referee Lawrence got it into his head that England prop Dan Cole was to blame for all of the problems at scrum time.  Cole was pinged again and again and again.  OK so he was at fault on a couple of occasions, but the Leicester loosehead seemed to cop the flak for pretty much everything.  Well ha ha to you ref.  Johnno shocked pretty much everyone at the start of the second half when David Wilson and Steve Thompson ran out to replace Cole and hooker Dylan Hartley.  But the strategy worked: the scrum steadied and the ref couldn't pin everything on Cole.  Excellent tactics.

Mike Tindall 1 v 0 Harry Potter

When it was announced that Gloucester centre Tindall was back in the number 13 shirt I sighed in frustration.  However, how wrong I was.  Good old Tinds had a fantastic game with his strong, direct running and he was one of England's best players.  When boy wizard look-a-like Mathew Tait swapped places with Tinds, England lost a lot of their momentum.  Tindall might not be a man for the future, but he certainly was more magical than Tait in this game.


Heaven 1 - 0 Earth

The heavens above Paris opened and the Stade de France pitch was duly unearthed.  Massive clods of grass were popping up everywhere.  In fact, it looked like an army of moles had taken residence and the rumbling French scrum had caused them to burrow to the surface to see what all the noise was about.  Pas bien.  It was also pretty dangerous.  I mean, tiny France Wing Marc Andreu could have easily disappeared forever down one of the holes.


Regardless of all of the above, it was a good game.  France weren't the best team on the day, but they were the best team in the tournament by far and fully deserved to win the Grand Slam.

Next year England.  Next year....

Squad Switcheroo

So it's time for the obligatory squad shake-ups before the next round of autumn international test matches. 

Whilst the Scotland team that will face Australia is unchanged from the side that got the better of Fiji in a dour encounter last weekend, Martin Johnson is getting good use of the revolving door that he had especially fitted in the home changing room at Twickenham prior to the start of this test series. 

Across the Irish sea there are a few changes in the Ireland starting fifteen, and over in Cardiff, the Wales side that narrowly lost to New Zealand is fully reformed like a slab of Spam after a week's break - well, with one new ingredient, and hopefully a little bit more meat than they showed against Samoa.

So who's in and who's out?

England

IN: 
Simon Shaw (lock), Mathew Tait (full back/wing/centre)

OUT: 
Andy Goode (part time fly-half/full time hair model), Courtney Lawes (lock)

RELEASED: 
Ben Foden (full back), Jordan Crane (number 8), George Chuter (hooker), Steffon Armitage (flanker), Ben Kay (lock), Paul Sackey (wing), Richard Wigglesworth (scrum half), David Flatman (prop)

Interesting. 
Andy Goode is going back to Brive.  See ya.
Monye hasn't been released, so is he going to switch to the wing so that either Cueto or Tait can start at full back?  With Steve Borthwick stubbornly clutching on to the captaincy and therefore guaranteeing his place in the side, it looks like Lions hero, man-mountain and the old experienced hands of Simon Shaw might push Louis Deacon on to the bench, which can only be a good thing.

All will be revealed at 12pm GMT tomorrow...


Ireland

IN:
Jonny Sexton (fly-half), Eoin Reddan (scrum half), Gordon D'Arcy (centre), Keith Earls (wing), Shane Horgan (wing), Tom Court (loosehead), Leo Cullen (lock), Denis Leamy (flanker)
New Replacements: Sean Cronin (hooker), Sean O'Brian (flanker).

OUT:
Tommy Bowe (wing), Ronan O'Gara (fly-half), Luke Fitzgerald (wing, injured), David Wallace (flanker), Cian Healy (loosehead, injured)

Hurrah!  The pretender to the O'Gara throne, Leinster's young gun Jonny Sexton is winning his first cap for Ireland.  I like Jonny Sexton a lot.  Last year he demonstrated a cool presence on the pitch in the pressurized environment of the Heineken Cup after playing second fiddle to Felipe Contepomi for such a long time, and he has shown the world that he has a calm head on his young shoulders.  Also, I like him because he looks quite sweet and a bit like an oversized toddler.  Bless.

Mansize toddler: Jonny Sexton (on the left)

Along with Jonny, the two Seans on the bench are also uncapped with Declan Kidney keen to give a few more young guns a shot against Fiji at Dublin's RDS.


Wales

IN:
Jonathan Davies (centre), Shane Williams (wing), Matthew Rees (hooker), Stephen Jones (fly-half), Martyn Williams (flanker), Gareth Cooper (scrum half),
New replacements: Andrew Bishop (centre), Dan Lydiate (flanker)

OUT:
Tom Shanklin (centre, injured), Martin Roberts (scrum half), Dan Biggar (fly-half), Dan Warburton (flanker),

Big news for Wales is that Jonathan Davies is BACK.

Soft focus really takes off the years

No, not that Jonathan Davies. 

21 year old Jonathan Davies plays in the centre (for the Scarlets) and not at fly-half like his legendary bouffant-haired namesake.  This weekend the new Jonathan Davies will make his first start at the Millennium stadium after impressing when he replaced injured Tom Shanklin off the bench in the game against Samoa last weekend.


Scotland

IN:
No-one.

OUT:
No-one.

Nice bit of consistency there Mr Robinson.  Good luck against Australia though.

Any excuse to include a picture of curly-haired Scotland captain, Chris Cusiter

What do I think?

It's good to see that Wales and Ireland are willing to give some of their hot up and coming talent some time on the pitch - unlike England. 

As much as I welcome the return of Simon Shaw and Mathew Tait into the England squad I'm still disappointed that Lawes and Foden have both been sent back to Northampton.  What was the point in hyping up Lawes so much if it was only in the mythical (and possibly non-existent) game plan for him to play approximately ten seconds of rugby in the two games where he was selected? 

With Monye hopefully not being allowed to continue pleasuring us with his erratic displays at full back and being switched to the wing (where he can ably demonstrate his sole skill of running fast in a straight line), Tait can step in to add some composure and threat from deep and Banahan can be relegated to the bench where he can hone his sprinting skills and try to out run an IKEA wardrobe for the first time in his life.

My predictions for this weekend?

New Zealand to beat England by 30 points.  At least.
Ireland to beat Fiji by 20 points.
Wales to beat Argentina by 10 points.
Australia to beat Scotland by about 1000 points.

Place your bets.