Good point… if I recall correctly, the (rare) occasion did arise, when Eastwood played Warringah earlier this year, Alexander & Robinson propped, Dunning hooked, the regular hooker, Fitzpatrick,at flanker. I assume, therefore, that a ‘regular’ flanker was demoted that day.

Prior to last Saturday’s Australia v England match, has there ever been 3 prop forwards from the same club play in the same test match? Robinson, Alexander & Dunning are all from Eastwood.

NB: not front rowers (such as McKenzie, Kearns, Daly or Price, Windsor, Faulkner), but props.

This is literally the most stupid and ridiculous and bizarre thing I have ever read in my entire life, and that is saying something.

Personally, I prefer the boxing school of sporting banter – all the trash talk in the world is fine before a fight, but keep it respectful afterwards. There is no honour in insulting a beaten opponent.

The best British rugby journalists are David Hands of The Times and Paul Rees of The Guardian. Hands is good because, though slightly on the dull side, he has good contacts, remains balanced and moderate and resiles from cheap shots. Rees is good because he actually forms his own opinions on the basis of what he’s seen, rather than merely repeating the conventional wisdom because it sounds good and sells papers (Kitson, Cleary, Jones, etc). Ackford is probably the worst: he’s a sub-Jones opnionator with a propensity for hissy fits. It’s hard to believe that he ever played the game to the level he did.

The conventional wisdom of the moment is that Jonno has had twelve months and England are no better and it’s time to start getting jolly mad because though Jonno is big and scary, he’s just too innately conservative to encourage the chaps to run with depth and guile, blah blah blah

The truth is that injuries in effect shoved Jonno straight back to square one this Autumn (only four survivors from the same fixture last year) and therefore the talk about “twelve months and no progress” is utterly unfair. Equally, the signs from the Six Nations were that England are capable of playing some decent attacking rugby when their key combinations have been together long enough to develop some understanding.

Most of the English sporting press is fixated with the short-term and deeply simplistic in its outlook.

i know you like your league, so to put it in league terms: everyone on a league field is important, but the ones with numbers 1, 6, 7 and 9 seem to keep cropping up as being the most important. Yes, Inglis bucks this trend, but every rule has exceptions (a bit like Habana in union). Jarryd Hayne’s current problems should probably be seen in this context: having been moved from FB to the wing, he is struggling to have any impact on events.

It was pretty obvious after the early part of the first half that England’s training ground moves where ineffective against a well drilled and battle hardened Wallaby side. They have a number of chances but didn’t trust either their own ability to perform on the big stage or indeed their other team members. Why? Quite simply they hadn’t played together in a test match arena. I don’t why we (English) should get so excited about a bunch of players who turn up, have two weeks practice and then expect them to play like top internationals when key positions are covered by players with few caps. The glorious exceptions were Wilkinson and Moody, they stood out not above their fellow English players and indeed above the majority of the Wallabies, why because they are not only world class but they have played in World Cup finals and have the nous and experience to perform on the test match arenas. The English play at the end of the game when they they were pressing and the ball was passed from one side of the pitch and back again with no movement was like a training ground exercise no go forward, no confidence to break the game line.

Perhaps the answer might have been for a Catt or Dallagio on the pitch as they had the ability to read the game and change the game plan, but it appeared to me that the game plan devised by the coaches was too inflexible and didn’t allow for a change in direction.

So my view is that it wasn’t a particularly good test match, England were not quite steamrollered but were pretty poor and gave away two soft trys through ineffective and poor defence.

Will this England team be better for the experience? Probably yes because there is abilty within the team but next up is the Argies and they are no pushover as most of them play in the NH and we know them well.

front row – none – all fit
2nd row – Kimlin, Sharpe and Caldwell injured, McMen and Vicks os if that counts. I don’t know of any English players who are unavailable because they are playing overseas.
back row – none that I can think of. First string backrow is certainly fit
half backs – all fit
inside backs – Barnes a big loss
outside backs – Mortlock, another big loss, plus Shepherd our first string fullback (when fit). Gerrard overseas if that counts.

So I’d say overall we’re missing, from our starting side

1-2 locks
10/12
13
15

so 4-5 starters.