England Rugby - October 2006

It all reminds me of Star Wars: Episode III. After being crushed and disillusioned by two woeful George Lucas films, in May 2005 fans flocked to multiplexes across the country hoping for cinematic redemption. But, with only scraps of hope and tattered threads of expectation remaining, they were let down again. English Rugby faces a similar problem as Andy Robinson takes charge for a third season, and while Mathew Tait and James Forrester provide ample potential to provide rugby's equivalent of a lightsaber duel, most are better prepared to grapple with the trundling predictability of the script for another year.

Could this be Mathew Tait and Robinson?

Determined, as I seem to be, to stretch this Star Wars metaphor as far as it will go, fear is to be England's biggest concern coming into this season. Already on their worst losing streak in 20 years, the thought of extending the run to six defeats on the trot against New Zealand on 5th November should be ample motivation for the coaches and the players to perform. But the fear of putting faith in a young squad for this autumn and beyond could well prove to be England's ultimate undoing.

It is that which brings me to Rob Andrew, assigned the duty of safeguarding English Rugby's future over the summer as the Elite Director of Rugby, and his first mistake. Almost before his new business cards had come back from the printers, Andrew announced that Robinson's job was not safe if his team could not deliver results before the World Cup next year, and many would expect me and many others to be screaming for joy at this statement of intent, but it is a double-edged sword. Robinson has proved in the past that his ability to reconcile pressure to get results with future development is lacking. Only time will tell if the ethos has changed at Twickenham's top table, but the players that can retain the Webb Ellis Trophy are the ones who will get better in the next twelve months, not worse.

'Tait's Syndrome' is, in my personal rugby dictionary, the term applied to throwing youngsters in at the deep end before they are ready, but the definition may soon change. The only rugby crime more heinous than subjecting an 18-year-old to a brutal Welsh onslaught would be to omit a 20-year-old from a midfield than needs him more than it could imagine. Sorry, worse still than that would be to leave out two 20-year-olds in the centre. Ask anybody who has seen a Guinness Premiership match this season and they'll tell you that the two form inside centres have a combined age of 41, their names being Toby Flood and Anthony Allen.

Allen will seldom see a better chance to show off his wares than this Saturday when he will face the might of D'Arcy and O'Driscoll, possibly the World's finest midfield pairing, when Gloucester face Leinster in the Heineken Cup. Should he hold his own then the 12 shirt should be his on 5th November. Flood will probably spend his weekend gliding past second-rate Italian opposition, but the sophistication of his kicking game (quite a boon considering Brian Ashton's opinions on inside centre play) and the crispness of his distribution will no doubt be in evidence once again. It is a great worry that if these men do not feature this autumn, then they will not feature in France in 12 months' time. If Robinson is too scared to play them now, he will be terrified to play them in the biggest competition in the World.  

The centres are probably the only area of the park where one is presented with a decision based on guts; the rest of the team selection can be attributed to matters of personal taste. We have two scrum-halves playing the rugby of their lives in Peter Richards and Shaun Perry; a fly-half who is the best in Europe by so much it's almost embarrassing; and, because it's England, tight forwards capable of giving anyone a good go, almost regardless of selection. The back row is more interesting, and this is why I love the Heineken Cup.

Starting tonight, Lund, Rees, Corry, Moody, Forrester and Hazell will pit themselves against the Ospreys, Castres, Munster and Leinster, and in a week's time it'll be Perpignan, Agen and Cardiff Blues (and Calvisano, but ignore that). If I could do nothing else, I would implore Andy Robinson to watch each one tested to their limits against this formidable opposition and pick his best. Not a word about experience, about the past, about the captaincy. Just watch the games and pick the players in form. There is barely a coach in the game who doesn't claim to pick on form, and barely a coach in the game who does as he says, but the next two weeks will be an acid test of whether Robinson has learned anything over the summer.

Ashton, Ford and Wells are primed and ready to go, the Premiership is a faster and more skilful league than it has been for a few seasons, and New Zealand, Argentina and South Africa lie in wait. How could anyone not be excited by what is in front of England? There's only one sure-fire way to disappoint fans anticipating the third part of the Robinson trilogy: casting.

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