Bold strategy or blind faith?
Posted on 03/02/2010Martin Johnson's squad to face Wales in England's Six Nations opener is his most attacking yet, but could this hand Warren Gatland's side the opportunity to take full advantage? Eddie Butler in The Guardian certainly thinks so, as he predicts a high-scoring encounter at Twickenham.
Wales often struggle to escape the stranglehold of a mighty England pack, and by the time the game escapes its rigid structures it is too late for Shane Williams in space to make much of a difference.But if the game is deliberately loosened by England, Wales may consider a fair proportion of the hard work done. And if you're going to experiment with liberty, it constitutes a major risk to do so against experts in broken-field rugby.
Wales have been talking up the importance of the kicking game from hand and how they will increase the volume of punting at the expense of a handling game. It has sounded as if Warren Gatland has swapped his customary pre-match barbs for a promise to be boring.
But what Wales say and what Wales do are not to be confused. And if England accept the perils of the trap and go ahead anyway, we could be in for a majestic opening to the Six Nations. Who will win? Can't say, but it won't be 7-6.
In The Times meanwhile, David Hands believes there are no real surprsises in Johnson's team, but it is a daring statement nonetheless.
Martin Johnson is not a man to go out on a wing and a prayer but there is more than an element of that in the starting XV to play Wales on Saturday. In part because he restores players - such as Delon Armitage and Riki Flutey - whose season has been attenuated by injury, in part because he is hoping to rediscover the form that England last produced last March, which seems longer ago than 11 months.It is the team universally anticipated, so in that respect the England manager has come up with no surprises. He has drawn a line directly from the decisions he made last season to now, ruling out the mishaps of the autumn and the weakened side that played Argentina in the summer. In doing so, of course, he pairs Jonny Wilkinson in midfield with Riki Flutey, a brand-new duo; he names a front row which, compared with Wales, has so much to prove.
He hopes that Armitage can recover the form that made him one of England's outstanding players of 2008-9 and that Danny Care has cast of the youthful indiscretions which haunted his game a year ago. Flutey is the most meticulous of men when it comes to preparation but the fact remains that he has played no more than four games this season and now he makes the leap into a must-win game for England.