England's leading clubs could learn a thing or two from this year's Tri-Nations according to The Independent's Peter Bills.

"Last weekend in Australia witnessed a quite extraordinary statistic, one of the most remarkable the old game can ever have known.

"In a major rugby Test match, one outside half kicked the ball just ONCE in the entire 70 minutes he was on the field. Quade Cooper of Australia is renowned as a player who likes to keep the ball in hand. Yet it wasn't just the Wallaby No. 10 who scorned the use of the boot.

"The entire Australian team managed to put boot to ball just 11 times in the whole match against the South Africans in Brisbane. What is more, the previous two weeks, the All Blacks had similarly adopted a running policy against the Springboks, outscoring them by eight tries to two.

"Figures such as this would doubtless send shock waves through English rugby where such innovative thinking is shunned, with the exception of a few notable club sides. But those who are wise in the northern hemisphere will take great heed of this year's Tri-Nations tournament and learn valuable lessons from it."

Bath's new performance director Ian McGeechan is relishing his return to rugby's front line. He talks to The Scotsman's Stuart Bathgate.

"At Murrayfield this week for the second meeting of the group which will nominate the first wave of inductees to the Scottish Rugby Hall of Fame later this year, the former Scotland coach and director of rugby explained why he believed his new job at the Recreation Ground was ideal for him - and why he had been unable to stay away from rugby for long.

"I needed it, I think," he said of the sabbatical he took after the Lions tour had ended in a 2-1 series loss to the Springboks. "Twenty-nine years on the bounce was a long time. So for about a month I thought, yeah, this is all right,

"After about four months I was thinking it less so, and after six months a bit less. That was the decision I had to make - how much involvement did I want? And having said yes, looking at the game I still feel ideas that I think are worth discussing and being part of it."

"I like the hands on. After you've had the rest, that's the bit I miss most. It's nice I've got the opportunity to keep that involvement up."

Paul Ackford talks to England's latest second-row hope, Gloucester's Dave Attwood, in The Daily Telegraph.

"I feel like one of those Wagyu cows," he says. "You know, the ones that produce Kobe beef, the ones that get fed on beer and get massaged daily with rice wine. I haven't quite managed to stay out of the gym, though."

"Whether he likes it or not, Attwood has come to represent Martin Johnson's new England. The uncapped second-row is only 23, and like Dan Cole, Ben Foden, Chris Ashton and Ben Youngs, has leapt from obscurity to, if not global recognition, then a position of some prominence.

"Attwood is everything Johnson wants in a rugby player: a bristling lump of a lock who puts himself about, operating with an energy and an enthusiasm which makes a difference to the outcomes of games. Rather like the old maestro himself in fact."

David Flatman reflects on the end of England's tour and a well-earned rest in The Independent on Sunday.

"A man at Napier airport, who was wearing the All Blacks jersey and hat, asked: "What happened last night?" Working on a hunch, I countered: "Didn't you see it, mate?" "Yeah, I saw it." "Then you know what happened, don't you?" OK, so perhaps I was being a bit touchy and perhaps the mild malaise brought about by the night before had shortened my normally medium-length fuse, but this was a level of smugness that, at that point, I could not handle.

"The queue for customs snaked on and, in between daydreams of making a run for it to escape the desperately awful world of air travel, I had time to reflect on my actions. Three minutes later the Kiwi chap and I were like old friends; he mocked my "Blackadder" accent while I lamented the absence of any Maori genes in my bloodline. Having repaired this mini-relationship I felt much better about life as I walked on.

"This was, after all, not a touchy, angry tour. It was a proper, hard, meaty, fun tour and that is how I intend to remember it. Rugby really is a wonderful way to earn a living. It takes us to all manner of places, acts as the introduction to so many different people and puts before us so many challenges that, surely, no other job does."

Writing in The Independent, Chris Hewett reflects on England tour-ending defeat to the New Zealand Maori.

"England had seen enough of the All Black wing Rico Gear down the years to fear what might be called an "extra Gear" in the shape of his younger brother, Hosea. They were dead right to be alarmed. The 26-year-old from Gisborne ran the tourists ragged before a capacity crowd in Napier yesterday, claiming three of the four tries that secured a full house of victories for the Maori in their centenary season. Joe Rokocoko, Sitiveni Sivivatu, Cory Jane, Zac Guildford... and now this bloke. Help.

"If Martin Johnson's second-string side managed three tries of their own, they were firmly of the "after the Lord Mayor's Show" variety: a fortunate follow-up score for Steffon Armitage, a tap-and-go effort from Danny Care and an easy run-in for Chris Ashton from a Charlie Hodgson interception. By comparison, the Maori five-pointers were works of rugby art. One of them, Gear's first, bordered on the magical."

There are tour games that offer fringe players a heaven-sent opportunity to force their way into the Test elite, and there are fixtures with the New Zealand Maori, according to The Independent's Chris Hewett.

"Many a red-rose wannabe has seen his international ambitions evaporate into the chill night air of the North Island, most notably in 1998, when the prospects of a large number of Englishmen went "pop" all over Rotorua.

"That England XV lost 62-14, and the memory of it still keeps people awake at night. The Maori are not quite the overwhelming force they once were, however. Martin Johnson, buoyed by his Test side's unexpected victory over the Wallabies at the weekend, can legitimately dream of victory when his "dirt-trackers" mark the Maori union's centenary here in Hawke's Bay tomorrow."

David Flatman is revelling in the life of a touring rugby player in The Independent.

"Another great week to be a sportsman. Tuesday night's win against the Australian Barbarians was hardly a classic but to win felt wonderful. The match began at such a clip that we on the bench wondered quite how long those on the field might last. And, in the end, our fears were realised as it became a battle of the gorillas. The advice from Graham Rowntree to the panting pack was simple: "You lot need to find a way to win." Exactly the right advice, spoken in the only tone an utterly exhausted front-rower can absorb.

"We did manage to find a way and, while it wasn't pretty, the scoreboard looked right come the final whistle and the bus journey back was as all journeys should be. A few local beers easily dealt with and some healthy, manly wrestling thrown in to abate some of the overflowing testosterone one would expect of a touring rugby team. Of course when touring we leave loved ones behind, so no family members or animals had to view what happened behind those strategically darkened windows, but suffice it to say it might have made the odd pacifist flinch."

Brian Moore believes that the next step for England is consistency after they proved that they can win one-off Tests with victory over the Wallabies in The Daily Telegraph.

"We have been here before – last-gasp, backs-to-the-wall performances last autumn, against New Zealand, and against France in the last match of this year's Six Nations. This could prove another in a succession of false dawns, so don't run to the bookies and bet on a World Cup win next year.

"What was significant for England was that a number of points were resolved. England showed that they recognise that dominance in any set-piece is not an end in itself. They repeated their first Test debasement of the Wallaby front row and used it to gain territory and penalties. However, they also tested to breaking point the usually sound Australian defence by making them uncertain as to where the point of attack would be."

England's Ben Youngs dives over to score a try against Australia © Getty Images

The Daily Telegraph's Mick Cleary was amongst those stunned by England's performance against Australia in Sydney on Saturday.

"There may not have been the fanfares or the medals, and the Cook Cup is not the Webb Ellis trophy, but the manner in which England celebrated at the final whistle bore the exultant manner of their last test victory in the southern hemisphere, that in the World Cup final in 2003.

"...The throng of England fans gathered at one end toasted them as champions as the players took a much-deserved salute, the sense of deja-vu completed by the fact that it was substitute Jonny Wilkinson who kicked the winning points only a minute after coming on the field in the 51st minute.

"Mind you, it took a miss of Don Fox proportions in front of the posts from Australia's Matt Giteau ten minutes from time to aid England’s cause. They’ll take it. They deserved a break. They have lifted themselves off the canvas, showing great soul and togetherness. And they didn’t even have to rely on penalty tries, the contest at the scrum having far less impact than in Perth."

Writing in The Independent, Chris Hewett reports that fresh talent was behind England's historic victory over Australia in Sydney.

"English rugby victories in the land of the Wallaby are rarer than radium, so two in five days takes an awful lot of believing. Martin Johnson's much-criticised, much-mocked Test side emulated the second-string "dirt-trackers" yesterday by squeezing out a narrow victory over their hosts and if Matt Giteau, one of Australia's star turns, contributed handsomely to this unexpected turn of events by making a horrible mess of his goalkicking, there was much to be said for the bloody-mindedness of the tourists, who had performed so inadequately in Perth seven days previously.

"Johnson's selectorial tinkerings – Ben Youngs for Danny Care at half-back, Courtney Lawes for Simon Shaw in the engine room of the scrum – worked out beautifully. Indeed, Youngs was wholly responsible for the first of England's two excellent tries, sniping round the back end of a shortened line-out and leaving Drew Mitchell, the Wallaby wing, holding nothing but handfuls of fresh New South Wales air."

England's rugby players secured only their third win in Australia in more than a century on Saturday with a 21-20 victory in Sydney, The Guardian's Rob Kitson reports.

"For a moment, as the strains of "Sweet Chariot" swirled around the Olympic stadium, it was as if England had clambered aboard a time-travelling Tardis back to 2003. Jonny Wilkinson kicking vital goals, the Wallabies floored on their own paddock and Martin Johnson restored to the winners' enclosure. No wonder the home side wore the haunted look of men who have just experienced a horrible sense of déjà vu.

"...You strongly suspect this result will concentrate Australian minds but it will do much more than that for English self-belief. They were almost unrecognisable from the pallid lot in Perth, miles better in attack and defence. Some of us have felt for a while that Ben Youngs should be England's starting No9 and here was conclusive proof: the Leicester scrum-half had a dreamy first Test start, which visibly galvanised those around him."

The Indpendent's Chris Hewett believes England must make huge improvements against Australia on Saturday after an 'unacceptable' defeat in opening Test.

"England were champions of the world once upon a time, but they have not beaten anyone, anywhere outside of Europe since Jonathan Peter Wilkinson dropped that goal of his here in 2003, which in rugby terms was back in the late Cretaceous period, when dinosaurs like Martin Johnson roamed the earth. If they lose to Australia today – and there is a very good chance of this happening – they will complete a second full cycle of abject failure.

"The Wallabies have won four successive matches on home soil, as have the New Zealanders. For the record, England's inglorious ledger also includes two defeats in South Africa and one in Argentina. As neither Andy Robinson nor Brian Ashton could eke out a result in the southern hemisphere, Johnson's spell as manager is, on the face of it, no more fruitless than his predecessors'. But Robinson travelled light in 2006, when the Australians won two Tests by the aggregate margin of 77-21, while Ashton ventured into Springbok country a year later with the Test equivalent of an Old Rubberduckians 3rd XV. Johnson, on the other hand, has something close to a full-strength squad at his disposal."

Northampton second-row Courtney Lawes has been waiting patiently for his chance to start for England and is ready to rampage against Australia according to The Guardian's Rob Kitson.

Former England and Lions international Andy Ripley died on Thursday after a long battle with cancer © Getty Images

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Brendan Gallagher reflects on his personal relationship with former England and Lions international Andy Ripley who died on Thursday after a long battle with cancer.

"For many of us Andy Ripley has always been a hero figure. In the Seventies when England were often - but not always - rubbish his sheer athleticism seemed to offer real long term hope and a template for future players although he was often met with selectorial suspicion.

"He was the star man when England won the world sevens in 1973 and for a short while England worked a number of elaborate tapped penalty moves to unleash his running power. Whatever happened to tapped penalty moves by the way?

"It took the might of Welsh immortal Mervyn Davies to keep him out of the 1974 Lions Test team and although on pure rugby criteria you can't argue with that, you can't help thinking that Ripley would have caused carnage on the High Veldt against a poorish Boks side. He would have been a sensation in today's modern game, a player to fill large stadia and make you gasp."

The day England bamboozle the Wallabies on the field the way they have just befuddled them in selection, they will stand a decent chance of revisiting the World Cup-winning glories of 2003, according to Chris Hewett in The Independent.

"Urgently in need of victory in tomorrow's second and final Test on the very patch of grass that yielded them the finest moment in their history, the tourists have shunned the blindingly obvious by leaving Jonny Wilkinson, the man who dropped the goal that won the trophy, on the bench. Radical? Adventurous? Possibly. Crazy? There is barely an Australian in the country who does not think so.

"It is not the business of Martin Johnson, the England manager, to do the things the Wallaby nation expects him to do. Under normal circumstances, his business is quite the opposite. But these are not normal circumstances. Johnson's record of eight wins from 22 Tests, none of them against serious southern hemisphere opposition, is far short of satisfactory and another defeat here would weaken him badly.

"Yet England, blessed with such set-piece superiority over a second-string Australian front row that they seem certain to scrummage their way to half-a-dozen kickable penalties at least, have decided against promoting the best kicker of them all to the starting line-up."

The Guardian's Rob Kitson is one of those surprised by England manager Martin Johnson's decision to leave fly-half Jonny Wilkinson on the bench for the clash with Australia in Sydney.

"It is so long since England won the 2003 World Cup at Stadium Australia that Jonny Wilkinson says he has forgotten at which end he kicked his life-changing drop-goal. If that sounds bizarre to an Australian audience, his exclusion from Saturday's England starting XV at the same location has similarly baffled the locals.

"There was an obvious horses-for-courses case for fielding Wilkinson at either 10 or 12 but it has been pointedly ignored in favour of a line-up featuring only two changes from the team unable to capitalise on their scrum superiority in Perth. This is a game England dare not lose tamely and the temptation to include Wilkinson for his goal-kicking alone must have been significant."

Greg Growden reviews a forgettable fixture between England and the Australian Barbarians, but retains his share of scrum fear, in The Sydney Morning Herald.

"Australia's scrum woes were amplified last night when the Barbarians front-row was minced up by the England opposition at Gosford, enabling the tourists to enjoy a mind-numbingly boring 15-9 victory.

"The Australian Barbarians pack were penalised eight times by referee Steve Walsh, with the most crucial occurring just before full-time when a makeshift front-row of hooker Tatafu Polota-Nau playing at tight-head prop, and replacements Huia Edmonds and James Slipper were guilty of collapsing. This enabled England kicker Olly Barkley to boot the winning points in a tryless and, at times, seemingly pointless match.

"Not surprisingly, a fair proportion of the crowd of 9053 booed when full-time was sounded, giving their opinion of a dreadful encounter which thankfully was not televised, because it would have sent the game backwards by decades. As the players filed off the field, one exasperated spectator yelled at the Wallabies bench: ''Bring back Tahu.''

David Flatman is finally off and running in Australia but admits to having missed a thing or two in England's draw with the Australian Barbarians in The Independent.

"A tour is not a tour until games have been played. And now they have, so we're off. Just under an hour and a half of sport for me in midweek meant so many different things for so many different reasons. For the trip itself, as an event, it brings it to life, makes it real. But as well as playing the part of a (somewhat tardy) starter's pistol, it was England versus the Aussies.

"Despite the fact that, seemingly, it was not important enough to be televised, this was yet another sporting contest to which the men involved offered every single iota of effort their bodies would allow. Every training session, every word spoken by a helpful coach or a loving parent or an omniscient commentator had led us to this point and, as is only right, those fortunate enough to have been delivered to this place in time committed to give it all to the cause."

Brian Moore believes that it is time for Martin Johnson to axe England's coaching staff in the wake of another poor display The Daily Telegraph.

"England's rugby management team will by now have had hours of analysis and discussion about their side's 27-17 defeat to the Wallabies in Perth on Saturday.

"They need not have bothered; anyone could identify the principal problem that undermines anything attempted by Martin Johnson's England team: slowness, torpor, sluggishness, lethargy – whatever word your thesaurus produces, it means the same thing.

"The closeness of the final score papers over large cracks in England's game. Apart from obliterating an Australian front row that would have been outgunned in mini rugby, nearly everything else England did could have been recorded by a portrait artist. How long will Johnson allow this malaise to continue? I could go back through my articles covering England's last five seasons and cut and paste comments about this deficiency."

Owen Slot talks to former England coach Clive Woodward about the dearth of top class coaches in Britain in The Times.

"Great Britain may have soared in the medals table at the Beijing Olympics two years ago, but Sir Clive Woodward believes that the team had the potential to rise higher. He says that there were at least six sports in which their athletes could have won medals if their coaching had been at a world-class level.

"Woodward, the performance director of the British Olympic Association (BOA), is not dismissive of the coaches, but is highly critical of the system. “Our best coaches are totally unsung heroes,” he says. But he also believes that there are not enough of them and that the structures to produce them are hopelessly inadequate — and that someone needs to help them.

“I passionately believe that you cannot win a gold medal unless you have a world-class athlete and a world-class coach,” he says. “This country is developing bucket-loads of talent. But are we developing enough world-class coaches? I don’t think we are."

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Paul Ackford believes a lack of invention cost England dear against Australia.

"Right. The good stuff first. England's scrummaging. That's it. Full stop. End of story.

"...This match did nothing to suggest that England had kicked on from their game with France. That was the hope going into the encounter, that at the end of a disturbingly-poor Six Nations, Martin Johnson's second, England might be turning some sort of corner. No chance. If anything, England are slipping further out of touch with what is required in international rugby.

"Whereas England do structure and pattern and nothing much else, the best of the rest do opportunity. The emphasis is on making sense out of movement, on players having the confidence and the skill sets to create situations which they can exploit.

"And if that sounds woolly, then good. It's meant to, because when Australia, France and New Zealand are on their game, they operate by instinct not via a play book."

The England scrum may have dominated their Australian rivals but the tourists were taken apart by the Wallabies' backs according to The Independent's Chris Hewett.

"Another Test match in Wallaby country, another defeat. For much of yesterday's contest at the Subiaco Oval, the crowd found themselves wondering whether there was any beginning to England's talents.

"This was not quite fair. Martin Johnson's team can scrummage, and scrummage well – especially against a rival front row so far short of international class that a half-decent Premiership second-string would bend them double at the set-piece. The tourists' supremacy in the darkened recesses earned them two pen-alty tries. But they achieved nothing else. Depressing? Yes, and then some.

"The Wallabies were so spellbindingly poor in the tight that for all their brilliance elsewhere – tainted brilliance, given their regular handling errors, but brilliance all the same – they might have finished this most peculiar match in the runners-up position."

England's Dan Cole is shackled by the Australia defence in Perth © Getty Images

England’s World Cup mission is once again in doubt according to the Daily Telegraph's Mick Cleary following their loss to Australia in Perth.

"England are often portrayed as no more than a bunch of grunts in these parts, laboured and one-dimensional: boring, boring Poms. It was hard not to argue with the locals.

"Australia were slick, clever and pacy. England were none of these things. They didn’t get across the try-line in open play. It was as dispiriting as it was disturbing. The scoreboard could have been far more damning, even if once again the Wallaby scrum was once again an insult to Test rugby.

"...England’s World Cup mission is once again in doubt. For all their fine words, they continue to look uneasy with each other, timid in attack and turgid in the loose. They made a catastrophic amount of mistakes, missing more than thirty tackles in the first hour alone.

"They allowed Australia a free run, particularly in the first half when England looked for all the world as if they were still back in Blighty. That things improved in the second half can be their only source of consolation as they head to Sydney for the second test next Saturday. They will need all their powers of persuasion to silence their inner demons."

England fly-half Toby Flood is enjoying his first trip to Australia, and promises some open play from England as they take on the Wallabies in The Independent.

"This is my first time in Australia and so far I'm impressed, even if the national sport appears to be beating Poms at anything from cards to rugby. It doesn't take long to realise this is a country that is passionate about sport and we are all too aware of the challenge that awaits us in Perth tomorrow and Sydney next week.

"The talk here in the media ahead of tomorrow's first Test is of taking Australia on up front. Of course we have to play to our strengths and if that is up front then that is what we must aim to do – you have to be realistic, we are playing Australia in Australia and that's a tough assignment. But we will still look for the opportunity to go wide or attack in other areas if the chance arises. It is also doing them an injustice to talk down their pack – I know as a player that when people don't give you respect it only fires you up even more."

David Hands is intrigued by England's new midfield pairing of Mike Tindall and Shontayne Hape in The Times.

" England’s choice for the first of two internationals against Australia, at Subiaco Oval on Saturday, will surprise few except those here who have assumed from the outset that Jonny Wilkinson would be playing fly half. Throughout the week, Australia’s midfield backs have been quizzed about their regard for Wilkinson who will take his place among England’s replacements, behind Toby Flood.

"It is almost as though seven years have not passed and Wilkinson is still the player whose dropped goal won England the 2003 World Cup. He would admit before anyone else that he is not the same person, never mind the same player, as that 24-year-old but he is also part of Martin Johnson’s ambition to have, in Flood, another player who can control both the game and the scoreboard in the way that Wilkinson can.

"Flood was promoted to that task against France in Paris in March and retains the jersey but four of those who started the last act of the RBS Six Nations Championship have gone: Dylan Hartley and Riki Flutey, absent from this tour because of injury, Louis Deacon, who has been given the summer off, and Joe Worsley, the London Wasps flanker who is here but loses his place to Tom Croft."

England prop David Flatman checks in from Perth as they prepare to face the Australian Barbarians in The Independent.

"I am thinking about taking up Aussie Rules. OK, so these boys probably cover 20 kilometres over the course of a game and I doubt I trot much more than a quarter of that in a rugby match, but bear with me.

"I reckon about a fortnight in the Perth summer sun would see me sweat off the weight of an average Labrador, leaving me a leaner, more endurance-based athlete (but still about 20 kilos heavier than your common-or-garden "footy" player). The kit is super, super tight, which, I am sure you will agree, can only be great news for my physique and public profile. But more importantly than all of this, pretty Australian girls love footy. So I would never meet any of them (wife plus physical appearance would see to that), but life is just better when the scenery is this good. Fact."

Paul Ackford believes that a northern hemisphere side must win on tour this summer to keep alive any semblance of pride in The Daily Telegraph.

"Since that visit, which encouraged the self-belief which led to global dominance two months later, England’s record has been execrable: a 51-15 defeat in Brisbane in 2004, followed by two Tests in 2006 which England lost 34-3 in Sydney and 43-18 in Melbourne.

"Yet, incredibly, England are the success story here. Wales have never won a Test match in New Zealand, Ireland have never beaten the All Blacks and last triumphed in Australia way back in 1979, and Scotland’s record against Argentina stands at two victories from 10 outings.

"That’s the reality right there. For all the smug self-congratulation at the commercial success of the Six Nations championship, for all the inflated salaries which the top players earn in this part of the world, when it comes to winning Test matches on the other side of the planet, we’re no bloody good."

George Smith says England needs more than just Jonny to compete in the World Cup © Getty Images

Jonny Wilkinson may be preparing for his first tour of Australia since his World Cup triumph in 2003, but he alone will not be able to save England when their tour starts in Perth next Saturday, retired Test star George Smith told the Sydney Morning Herald.

''They definitely have the drive to win down there,'' Smith told the Herald. ''They will be very competitive, but with their end of their season and the Wallabies at the start of theirs, the Wallabies will be too strong.''

Shaun Edwards is pleased that the changes to the breakdown reinvigorated the Guinness Premiership in the second half of the season in The Guardian.

"Throw me an unmarked DVD of any match in the 2009-10 Premiership season and, within seconds, I'll tell you whether it was played before or after February. The Leicester v Saracens final – what a sensational game that was – simply emphasised the difference between the rugby we saw initially and what we ended up with, thanks to the revised refereeing interpretations at the breakdown. Chalk and cheese is an understatement. There is no question the balance of the game has shifted for the better.

"I still believe it was a brave decision by those in high places. In the end they had to acknowledge the "other way" wasn't working. Referees were being told to referee in a manner that simply wasn't encouraging phase-play rugby. I'm a defensive coach and well over 50% of my time was being spent teaching people how to kill the ball or how to catch up-and-unders. Thank God, that's no longer the case.

"The result has been contests like last Saturday's. I thought the first half, in particular, was outstanding, although this season has also underlined the value of good prop forwards. Rugby union, without doubt, is now a 23-man game. Both Heineken Cup semi-finals and the Leicester v Bath Premiership semi-final were effectively settled by props coming off the bench. That's why the best ones are now among the highest-paid players in the world."

Dean Richards has been back in the headlines © Getty Images

Brian Moore believes that Dean Richards' return to the headlines shows the flaws in ERC's judgement against him in The Daily Telegraph.

"I told you so. I usually have little time for those who revel in schadenfreude, but this time I am enjoying the public discomfort felt by the officials from European Rugby Cup Ltd and the International Rugby Board over their inability to draft and impose a uniformly binding ban on Dean Richards, who has since carried out consultancy work for Worcester, for his part in the Bloodgate affair.

"It would not be thus had it not been for the disgraceful way ERC ignored repeated and legitimate questions about serious deficiencies in their prosecution of Richards et al, refusing to front up while hoping it would all go away. It would be different had the IRB, situated in the same Dublin office block, not simply rubber-stamped the whole thing and refused to investigate such serious concerns."

Leicester's Louis Deacon and George Chuter lead the celebrations at the final whistle © Getty Images

Writing in the Sunday Times, Stephen Jones rates Leicester Guinness Premiership Final victory over Saracens as "the greatest final of all time."

"Inside the last five minutes, Saracens took the most dramatic lead when Glen Jackson, who had piloted a team of delightful attacking skills with real precision, put Saracens 27-26 into the lead with a penalty from within easy range. Considering his legs must have been jelly, it may as well have been from 300m.

"All Saracens had to do to win their first title was take the kick-off, set it up and run down the clock. But, incredibly, Scott Hamilton came up with a desperate dash to catch the ball cleanly as it fell, and he ran on for the line. He picked up an amazing run by Danny Hipkiss, the Leicester centre who had just come on as replacement.

"Hipkiss hurtled into the last defenders, incredibly hurtled out the other side and scored to provoke probably the loudest noise that Twickenham has every heard — a combination of sheer, roaring delight from Leicester and agony from Saracens."

The Sunday Telegraph's Paul Ackford is also full of praise for the entertainment served up by Leicester and Saracens at Twickenham.

"The stark fact is that Leicester have regained their crown at the Premiership’s premier side in their sixth successive final but this was a game way beyond statistics. Both sides pushed each other beyond heroism. It was a match which showed club rugby in England in the most extraordinary light because it had everything: skill, drama, tension. And never, not until the last few seconds when Dan Hipkiss secured Leicester’s final try could anyone guess which side would prevail.

"Saracens were desperately unlucky. With Brendan Venter, their director of rugby, watching at home due to his RFU ban, they gave everything in a valiant attempt to unseat Leicester. Their courage was beyond doubt and some of their rugby was scintillating but this time of year at Twickenham Leicester refuse to lie down and the fact that they came from behind to win inside the last three minutes speaks volumes for their collective character."

Writing in the < Ahref="http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-union/news-comment/david-flatman-oldschool-tour-but-itll-be-men-at-work-in-land-down-under-1986942.html" target="new">Independent on Sunday, Bath and England prop David Flatman looks forward to next month's tour to Australia and New Zealand.

"One principle of touring that I know still exists is the bonding of men. We will train like dogs every day in the heat and will donate every drop of energy in the bank to winning every game. But once the game is done there will, as ever, be a chance to unwind with the very same men with whom one has recently been to the very limits of sporting exertion.

"This does not mean turning from an international rugby team to a university one after two pints and letting ourselves down, it means finding somewhere where we can escape the pressures of the job at hand and talk about something other than rugby. This serves both to keep the mind fresh and, perhaps more importantly, as a social tool; we will all know one another better the morning after a few glasses of wine. Inhibitions loosen and the men behind the muscles come out. These environments are where friendships are born."

After a build-up dominated by rows and trivia Leicester showed their class to deliver an extraordinary twist in the tail in this season's Guinness Premiership finale. The Observer's Michael Aylwin reports.

"For a fleeting few seconds on a magnificent climax to the English season, it had looked so glorious for the team that had stolen so many headlines and riled so many opponents. Saracens' extraordinary run to end this campaign seemed set to be consummated in glory when Glen Jackson, in his last match, sent over a penalty with three minutes to go at Twickenham to snatch Saracens a one-point lead.

"But they are some champions, these Leicester Tigers, and when nerve was called for, it was the perennial champions of England who showed it, and Saracens who did not. Dan Hipkiss's burst for the winning try, straight from the restart, was decisive. And what a fitting end it was to a season that has ended up rewarding so richly those who stuck with it through the dark days."

Saracens captain Ernst Joubert and Leicester skipper Geordan Murphy pose with the Guinness Premiership silverware © Getty Images

The Guinness Premiership final at Twickenham on Saturday evening will surely reshape some myths according to the Daily Telegraph's Mick Cleary.

"Leicester can play and Saracens can operate without Venter. On that premise alone the sell-out crowd of 81,600 will have value for money. There is an understated zest in the game of defending champions, Leicester, as well as a deep-rooted sense of solidarity that makes Saracens a potent threat.

"Indeed the Tigers, second highest try-scorers in the Premiership, will have to get across the try-line if they are to match the scoring prowess of in-form opponents while Saracens might actually welcome the sense of grievance generated by the Venter affair to stoke the fires that bit more.

"Saracens’ belief in the collective is not contrived or recently acquired. Venter’s greatest achievement has been in establishing a hard-edged identity at a club renowned for flaky transience. They could be Leicester in black. Top teams need talent for sure, but they also need cussedness. They need to be chippy, defiant and not give a tinker’s cuss what others think of them. That has always been the Leicester way. Now it is that of Saracens, too."

Brendan Venter will not be at Twickenham in person this evening, but he will certainly be there in spirit. The Independent's Chris Hewett writes.

"He will also be there in cardboard, papier-mâché and a range of other materials if the hard core of Saracens supporters, who rightly count themselves among the most boisterously enthusiastic in England club rugby, deliver on plans to dispense thousands of Venter masks to the paying public ahead of the Guinness Premiership final with Leicester, in protest at the South African's exclusion from the event.

"Today is the first day of Venter's 10-week match-day coaching ban, imposed for "behaviour prejudicial to the interests of the game", but as it coincides with the last game of a nine-month domestic campaign, it is the only day that actually matters. The Saracens director of rugby will watch the contest on television at his home in St Albans, in the company of his youngest son, and may find himself wondering whether he is staring at his bathroom mirror. A sea of Venter faces in a crowd of 80,000-plus will be a serious embarrassment to the governing body."

Leicester stalwart Lewis Moody is aiming to end his career at Welford Road with victory in the Premiership final against Saracens. Michael Aylwin writes in The Guardian.

"You may expect a lengthy pause when you ask Lewis Moody to choose the highlight of his 14-year career with Leicester. Here is just some of what he might choose from – six Premiership-winning seasons, two Heineken Cup-winning seasons, an Anglo-Welsh Cup.

"But, no, the answer comes really quite quickly. "People are surprised that the memories that will always stick with me are the games like Munster away at Thomond Park [in 2007]," he says. "They'd never lost a European game at home, and we went there as underdogs and we took that crown away from them, at their home ground, in their last game."

"Of all the sun-kissed glories – and he goes for a dark, rainswept night in Limerick, buffeted on all sides by the winds, the fans and previously invincible opponents, where their achievement was nothing more or less than winning where no one else had won. It was Munster's 27th and last Heineken Cup game at the old Thomond Park – just one more win and the old fortress would have remained unviolated. But, no, what followed provides Moody with his fondest memory of his time at Leicester. Spoiling Munster's party, "at their home ground, in their last game".

Mick Cleary believes that the blame for Dean Richards' short-lived return lays at the feet of the game's administrators in The Daily Telegraph.

"If the letter of the law has not been breached, there is no doubt that its spirit has been. And it is rugby administrators in the European game who have bungled, not Dean Richards.

"They ought to have imposed a drug-style ban under International Rugby Board ruling 21, one that prevents an offender from having any association with the sport worldwide. Instead they botched it.

"Welcome to the land of the loophole, a world with a lack of clarity. There was the sound of stable doors being bolted as the Rugby Football Union issued a clarification on the matter. Too late."

Matthew Syed, writing in The Times, is perplexed by Dean Richards raising his head again so soon after Bloodgate.

"The episode undoubtedly asks searching questions of a sport seeking to rehabilitate itself. For a start, how could any self-respecting club hire a man who heaped such disgrace on the game? Why has there been no outcry from the insiders party to the deal? And, perhaps most sinister of all, why did the RFU not come clean about the fact that Richards was once again earning money from the sport, leaving it instead to a journalist from this newspaper to break the story?

"We would do well to remember that in the aftermath of the match between Harlequins and Leinster, Williams’s lip was cut by Wendy Chapman, the club doctor, in order to engineer evidence retrospectively of a blood injury that never occurred.

"Chapman is still under suspension by the General Medical Council for her part in the affair. We should also remember that Richards was quite willing to use his authority to orchestrate a cover-up that led to the blame initially being heaped on Williams."

The Times' David Hands delivers his verdict on the inexperienced England side that will face the Barbarians.

"Any England team playing the Barbarians at this time of year is subject to all sorts of provisos - who can be picked or, more particularly, who cannot. No simple line can be drawn through Sunday’s starting XV towards the team that will meet Australia in Perth on June 12, save the possibility that, of the newcomers, Shontayne Hape will be in both of them.

"The England management are determined to see what Hape can make of the inside-centre berth, even though he has shifted sideways for Bath since the return to fitness of Olly Barkley. At times, Bath have taken the field without him but since illness ruled him out of the first match of the RBS Six Nations Championship, against Wales in February, Hape has been a work in progress.

"The former New Zealand rugby league player can, on his day, demonstrate both strength and skill but the player who has ended the domestic season in sparkling form in the 12 jersey has been Barkley who has, as it happens, not played for England since the tour to New Zealand on 2008. The same can be said of two more of Sunday’s backs, David Strettle and Charlie Hodgson, who appeared to have no international future after the public criticism of the defence during the 2008 tour."

Sarries chief executive Edward Griffiths goes on the offensive at the club's training ground on Wednesday © Getty Images

With their coach banned from Saturday's Premiership final and the club branded upstarts, Saracens are making few friends. But, their chief executive Edward Griffiths tells The Independent's Chris Hewett, they are just misunderstood.

"It should be some occasion, the Guinness Premiership final at Twickenham on Saturday evening. Saracens, the surprise package of the campaign, will be playing at the home of one of their freshly-made enemies, the Rugby Football Union, against one of their long-standing enemies, Leicester – possibly in the enforced absence of their director of rugby Brendan Venter, who has been upsetting the apple-cart all season and now finds himself barred from the stadium and its environs. Such draconian banning orders are rare indeed, but then, Venter is a rarity himself.

"This evening, the World Cup-winning Springbok centre and practising GP – he still runs a surgery in Cape Town, albeit from a distance – will pitch up at a London hotel and attempt to persuade a second RFU tribunal boasting two QCs that the law as interpreted by the governing body's chief disciplinary officer, Judge Jeff Blackett, is something of an ass. Earlier this month, Venter engaged in a full and frank exchange of views with a group of Leicester supporters during a league game at Welford Road and picked up a 14-week match-day coaching ban (plus the added extra of exclusion from Twickers) for his trouble. It was his second conviction for "behaviour prejudicial to the interests of the game" in a matter of months, and while he feels extremely hard done by, those who do not like the cut of his jib think he deserves everything he continues to get."

Lewis Moody is trying to tame the beast inside ahead of Leicester Tigers' Guinness Premiership play-off final against Saracens on Saturday. The Times' Jim White reports.

"Never having been in collision with a 10- ton truck it is impossible to make definitive comparison, but being tackled by Moody leaves me scanning the turf for tyre tracks. Surely only something large, mechanical and diesel powered can hit that hard and fast.

"It is all so quick, I am first aware that something has occurred when I am sitting on the grass with no air in my lungs and an embarrassed look on my face. Later video evidence reveals that England's freshly appointed rugby captain has thrown me up and over his shoulder with the kind of casual ease the rest of us might lift a small infant. And if that isn't full pelt, how close to his match standard tackle is it?

"Oh," he says. "About 10 per cent."

Moody is at Richmond Rugby Club filming a trailer for Sky's coverage of Saturday's Premiership final between his Leicester and Saracens, in which a camera has been placed in a tackle bag. The idea is that when he smacks into it, the viewer gets an understanding of what it is like to be hit by the big man, in full HD."

Hugh Godwin talks to Northampton and England wing Chris Ashton following the death of his father in The Independent on Sunday.

"Chris Ashton will have raw and compelling reasons to do well on England's forthcoming tour of Australia and New Zealand, the departure point for which is next Sunday's match with the Barbarians at Twickenham. The Northampton wing and Premiership Player of the Season lost his father Kevin suddenly to cancer earlier this month and said: "I'm sure he'll be watching down, and I hope I can keep on making him proud."

"The funeral was at a Catholic church in the Ashton family's home town of Wigan last Monday and the following evening Chris publicly mourned his 55-year-old dad with a moving tribute as he collected his award at the Premiership's end-of-season dinner in London."

Paul Ackford meets Leicester's Dan Cole to talk scrums, Castro, fighting and the Leicester way in The Sunday Telegraph.

"There are reasons for this. He's a young man, just turned 23, making his way in a position where textbook techniques count for nothing when set against the experience of a thousand scrums, and there is a certain Martin Castrogiovanni, an Italian maestro of 67 caps, blocking his path to regular first-team action. Even so, it must be incredibly frustrating.

"It is bizarre, but I do what I'm told. I want to play, but I want to do what's best for the team, and that's when you put your trust in the coaches. I might think that I'm good enough to start, but I only see a little of the game and they see the whole picture."

"Has he asked questions, stormed into boss Richard Cockerill's office and demanded to be picked? "Yeah. I've asked questions because I want to know what I need to do to start. I got told that Castro, on his day, is the best tight-head in the world, and, on my day, I'm not."

Stephen Jones, writing in The Sunday Times, believes that Saracens director of rugby Brendan Venter has been poorly treated by the RFU.

"On Tuesday, an appeals panel set up by the Rugby Football Union will decide whether Brendan Venter, the Saracens director of rugby who has taken a notoriously misfiring club and concept and propelled it into the Guinness Premiership final, will be allowed to do so much as darken the doors of Twickenham on Saturday.

"Venter was convicted at an initial RFU hearing before Judge Jeff Blackett of making provocative gestures to the crowd during the recent Leicester Tigers v Saracens match, when people angrily remonstrated with him as he rose from his seat to follow play. The temperature of the dispute is still high, with the judge and the club continuing to trade blows. Judge Blackett complained at the effrontery of Venter in eating a biscuit just as the hearing began. Venter’s side ask: “Why provide a plate of biscuits if no-one was meant to eat them?”

"And guess which two teams will contest the Premiership final? Correct, Leicester and Saracens."

Hooker Neil Clark feels Exeter will not throw away their chance to escape the Championship against his old side Bristol. Paul Rees writes in The Guardian.

"Getting back into the Guinness Premiership for a relegated club used to be a relatively straightforward matter: bank your parachute payment of some £4m, maintain a full-time squad with a far greater budget than that of your rivals, top the First Division at a canter and rejoin the big boys after a sabbatical.

"Bristol's route back since last season's relegation has been longer and more twisted. Finishing at the head of the Championship, as the second tier has now been renamed, was only the start of it: six play-off group matches were followed by a semi-final against London Welsh and tomorrow night they face Exeter at Sandy Park in the first leg of a final that will be concluded at the Memorial Stadium a week tomorrow.

"This season's Championship contained clubs who, in a previous generation, were marquee names: Coventry, London Welsh, Bedford, Moseley and Bristol, while Rotherham had two seasons in the Premiership in the 2000s. Exeter, though, are among the arrivistes and their ground will host its largest attendance, a 10,000 sell-out, as the South-west looks to broaden the geography of the Premiership."

Writing in The Independent, Brian Ashton urges the now retired Mike Catt to coach the way he played.

"I see little point in looking back over Mike's playing career, for there have been numerous eulogies already, including two memorable appraisals from Jeremy Guscott and Will Greenwood, both of whom played alongside him in the England midfield and understood the things he brought to the mix. I must, however, mention that he was one of those rare individuals whose approach to rugby mirrored a couple of truths defined by my great sporting hero, Muhammad Ali: the idea that "he who does not dare to take risks achieves nothing in life"; and the notion that a sportsman should "defy the impossible and shock the world".

"My interest is in how Mike develops as a coach, because I believe he has the ability to make a mark. In essence, I'd like to see him coach as he played – to stay loyal to his creative instinct. When I worked with him at Bath in the early and mid-1990s, he was one of a group of players who made it their business to be provocative, challenging and bloody-minded in their pursuit of excellence. To put it bluntly, they were all a pain in the arse, and quite deliberately so. It came from their determination not to allow their rugby to stand still, never to be satisfied with the things they achieved."

The play-off semi-finals' rival fly-halves - Glen Jackson, Butch James and Toby Flood - have led the Premiership out of its defensive darkness according to Paul Rees in The Observer.

"It was not that long ago, when rugby union had become clogged in a defensive mind-set, that the role of a fly-half was perceived to have changed from being a side's conductor, setting tone and tempo, to a mere member of a one-note orchestra. There would be no more maestros in the mould of Barry John, was the dull refrain.

"...The spirit of John has flickered in the final months of the Premiership campaign, light shining where before there was almost total darkness. Three of today's four play-off semi-finalists, Saracens, Bath and Leicester, have been led into the land of promise by their fly-halves: Glen Jackson, Butch James and Toby Flood respectively.

Northampton have the most daring fly-half of all, Shane Geraghty, who provided many of the few flashes of inspiration in the opening months of the season before returning from England's autumn international campaign with his self-confidence dimmed. But he has played a bit-part role for the Saints in 2010, bench fodder for Stephen Myler, to be used only if a game needs to be chased in the final quarter. It is a waste, even if Myler has not betrayed his side's cause."

The Independent's Chris Hewett speaks to Lewis Moody whose summer move from Leicester Tigers to Bath has raised eyebrows in the midlands ahead of the rivals' clash tomorrow afternoon.

"Strange days? There have been none stranger. A volcano in Iceland closes airports in North Africa, George Osborne and Vince Cable walk hand in hand into the fires of the banking crisis and Lewis Moody prepares to leave Leicester for Bath by playing for Leicester against Bath. And not in any old match, either. The second of tomorrow's Guinness Premiership semi-finals pits the most successful English club of the professional era against the greatest of the amateur era – clubs that built their supremacy on the assumption that no player operating at the height of his powers could conceivably contemplate joining someone else. On that basis, the man is flying in the face of history.

"As Moody's form is somewhere near its apex, it could be said that this is Leicester's "Simon Halliday moment". A couple of decades ago, Halliday left Bath for Harlequins – a decision that reduced the movers and shakers at the Recreation Ground to a state of spluttering disbelief. The England centre was not forgiven in a hurry. After Stuart Barnes, one of the guiding spirits at Bath, had earned his side a John Player Cup final victory over Quins by dropping a goal in extra time, Halliday extended the hand of reconciliation by saying: "If anyone had to drop a goal to beat me in a cup final, I'm glad it was you, Stuart." To which Barnes responded, sulphurically: "If I had to drop a goal to beat anyone in a cup final, I'm glad it was you, Simon."

Schalk Brits has delighted in such measure this season, that The Daily Telegraph's Mick Cleary feels the South African shouldn't miss the Premiership final.

"There is, of course, far more to Saracens’ progress to Sunday’s Premiership play-off semi-final at Northampton than Brits’s mere presence. They are clever and rugged in equal measure. But Brits is the star turn, a formidable athlete, the motor that kick-starts so much, a trigger point for the new-wave Saracens who have emerged since adjusted law interpretations opened up the game.

"It would be a travesty if Brits, 29 tomorrow, were to be suspended for the final, should Saracens overcome Northampton. He made his gesture as he trudged from the field, groggy from a knock to the head. He took it upon himself after the final whistle to seek out the opposition fans and apologise. “It was not acceptable,” he said.

"Time for sanity and a sense of proportion to prevail. Brits has brought joy to Saracens fans and delight to neutrals. "

This has been a season for growing up, for Ben Foden and for Northampton according to The Times' David Hands.

"No one would accuse Foden, 24, of lacking confidence but this season his feet have been firmly on the ground, planted there by Jim Mallinder, his director of rugby and a former England full back. In his previous life Mallinder was a teacher and it is easy to identify his methods: suggest to Foden that he could double up between his original position, scrum half, and full back and become a fringe player or be a full-time full back and be involved all the time.

"For too long Foden resisted the choice, despite the man-of-the-match awards showered on him when he wore 15. This season has been the first in which he has regarded himself as a full back pure and simple, in which he has worked specifically to improve his skills in the position."

There are plenty of reasons to back the away sides, Saracens and Bath, in the Premiership play-offs on Sunday according to Shaun Edwards in The Guardian.

"Run this one past your bookie. If there have been only two victories for the away teams in six years of play-off semi-finals then what odds will he give on two in one weekend?

Think about it; in 11 games only two away sides – London Irish at The Stoop last year and Leicester at Kingsholm in 2008 – have gone through to the final day, but this time it's wide open. More than that, Northampton versus Saracens and Bath at Leicester later on Sunday could be the best play-off weekend so far. The ingredients are there."

Stephen Jones is predicting a rollercoaster ride in the Guinness Premiership semi-finals given the recent form of both Bath and Saracens in The Times.

"Once it all seemed certain. It has been assumed for months that the Guinness Premiership final would be contested by Leicester and Northampton, the two outstanding teams in the tournament, no matter who managed to stagger into the play-offs in third and fourth place.

"Except no-one staggered. Saracens and Bath fill the third and fourth positions on the back of a menacing momentum that has made this Sunday’s semi-finals anything but forgone conclusions. There is the first stirring of anxiety in the camps at Leicester and Northampton.

"This is all wonderful news for the finale. In my opinion, Leicester are still favourites to beat Bath, although if the Bath forwards can play out of their skins then it could be mighty close."

The latest England squad to tour the southern hemisphere will be the strongest to cross the Equator since the World Cup-winning year of 2003, and as a consequence, results will be paramount according to Chris Hewett in The Indepdendent.

"The vast majority of the Elite Player Squad picked by the manager back in January will be present and correct, supplemented by a 20-strong group who can claim to be among the form players in the Premiership – or, in the case of Tom Palmer of Stade Français, the French Top 14 tournament. Johnson now has David Flatman, the best of England's loose-head props, at his disposal, along with a revitalised Olly Barkley, a rejuvenated Charlie Hodgson, a bristling Joe Simpson, a confident Dominic Waldouck and a clutch of new back-five forwards – Dave Attwood of Gloucester, Geoff Parling of Leicester, Hendre Fourie of Leeds – who will look to lay down a marker ahead of next year's World Cup in New Zealand.

"All told, then, this is a useful party – one that should be more than capable of avoiding the utter humiliation routinely associated with English encroachments on Wallaby territory."

With nine uncapped players selected and no Steve Borthwick or Louis Deacon, England are equipped for a gear change according to the Guardian's Paul Rees.

"So, no Steve Borthwick for England this summer as he recovers from a knee injury and no Louis Deacon, who started four of the eight domestic Tests this season. Dynamism may be the new order. Maybe.

"...England increased the pace of their game in Paris. It may not have been enough to defeat France but it provided some optimism for the future after another campaign in which the men in white had largely been conservative. Johnson swore by both Borthwick and Deacon, two grafting second rows, but with pace out wide and mobility in the front row, England are equipped for a gear change."

Bath prop David Flatman breaks the mould and lets slip that he'd love to tour with England this summer in The Indepdendent.

"As a sportsman, one is almost duty-bound to refrain from giving any actual opinions, voicing any concerns or sharing any genuine desires when asked a question by anyone other than one's own mother. In the terrifying interview situation, the straight bat is the tool of choice when the brain is scrambling to find an answer that will not offend anybody or let too much go. However, as a sports fan, I am as bored and frustrated as anyone by the allergy to actual information that seemingly infects the minds of sporting interviewees the world over. So I thought I might break the mould a little.

"In a few days, Martin Johnson will announce his England squad to tour Australia and New Zealand. It wouldn't half be nice to be in it. I know, I have now opened myself up to the ritualistic banter and haranguing reserved solely for a rugby player by his team-mates but it is true; I want to go. Were I not selected then the disappointment would outweigh the boys' fun anyway, so the risk is minimised at least."

Brian Moore believes that the recently retired Mike Catt can inspire England's backs, even if he does have terrible shoes, in The Daily Telegraph.

"Mike Catt was not at the Recreation Ground in Bath on Saturday, but he may have had an enigmatic smile on his face at the news that after a number of fallow seasons, his alma mater may at last be on the way to restoring the glory years he experienced there with many other legends of the game.

"He would have approved of the score of 39-3 against Leeds, and he would have felt a tad wistful about the manner of the victory. It is too soon to say that Claassens, James, Barkley, Hape, Maddock, Banahan and Adendenon are the equal of say Hill, Catt, Guscott, de Glanville, Adebayo, Sleightholme and Callard because their inclusive performance on Saturday has not yet achieved much frequency, but the potential to match this former backline is there.

"Could they go on to emulate arguably one of the strongest English club combinations; that of Hill, Barnes, Guscott, Halliday, Trick, Swift and Webb?"

The Guardian's Stephen Moss gets up close and personal with everyone's favourite cerebral sportsman, Jonny Wilkinson.

"It's surprisingly difficult to interview someone who has a black eye and gashes on his nose and neck, especially when you're sitting two feet away from him on a sofa. Jonny Wilkinson, England rugby legend, hasn't been in a fight on the way to the Rosslyn Park rugby ground (we meet in a messy backroom full of balls he has to sign for some unspecified promotional purpose). He got knocked about the night before playing for his new French club Toulon against Connacht, has flown from Ireland to London to spend a day coaching competition winners for his sponsor Volvic, and is heading back to Nice this evening.

"We are not going to get long together, which is frustrating because Wilkinson – England's starriest rugby player in the past decade, but also one of its most injury-prone – is just about the most cerebral, intense, self-questioning sportsman I've ever met; as complex as the choreography of his famous place-kicking routine. He looks like a Californian surfer, and there are times when he talks like one too, trying to explain his philosophy of sport and life.

"I had intended a softish opening – "You must be knackered after last night's match" – but immediately, in his gentle, earnest, slightly nasal voice, he is telling me why he could never be a rugby commentator in a sporting afterlife that is now not far away. "I'd be the commentator that TV stations would want rid of straightaway – I would be so non-committal with regard to players' performances."

In an interview with The Independent, Austin Healey offers his views on Martin Johnson's attempts to return England to its former glories.

"To a man obviously in love with the game of rugby - and speaking about it - Austin Healey's new role analysing the Premiership for ESPN next season should be the dreamiest of dream jobs. But there is one the motor-mouthed Healey rates higher.

"Martin Johnson is hugely passionate about what he does," he says of the England manager, who also happens to be one of his best mates. "He's certainly feeling the pressure of the job, and who wouldn't be? But I've basically said to him 'I don't know what the problem is, it's the best job in the entire world, just think, you could be on the front line in Pakistan'."

Writing in the Sunday Times, Stephen Jones feels that if England's players do not return from their upcoming summer tour revitalised it will represent a dereliction of duty on the part of Martin Johnson and his coaches.

"Precious time, precious tour. For teams not faint of heart, every harsh assignment is an opportunity. On Tuesday, England - our beleaguered, shambling, England - announce their party to tour Down Under in June.

"In all respects, it is a perfect opportunity for a rediscovery and a revival. One season out from the World Cup, it is an itinerary from heaven. If the party does not return revitalised, and coherent, it will represent a dereliction of duty on the part of Martin Johnson and his unmerry men."

Bath prop David Flatman revels in the return of the scrum as an attacking weapon in the wake of the Heineken Cup semi-finals in The Independent.

"As French rugby sails full steam ahead towards the promised land, leaving the game in the British Isles paddling around in the shallows with its trousers rolled up to the knees, it is time to identify the things separating them from us.

"Their clubs have more money, for a start, along with greater pulling power: domestic championship attendances are now within 6,000 of the average gate in the top flight of professional football. They play for the most part in superbly appointed municipal stadiums, they have comprehensive television coverage and – very important, this – they all have a scrum.

"Yes, we're back in the age of the dear old set-piece: the 16-man game within a game where an inch gained here and there allows a team to win by miles. Last week, both Toulouse and Biarritz prevailed in their respective Heineken Cup semi-finals because they tore up the opposing scrum."

Stuart Barnes previews Bath's vital Guinness Premiership meeting with The Times.

"Where else to concentrate our attentions than Bath for the clash of the two most astonishing English teams of 2010? At Christmas, it looked like this match would be heavily significant - but for reasons diametrically opposed to this weekend's.

"Leeds were exactly where most pundits expected them to be, at the foot of the table, but it was Bath helping them buttress up the rest of the Premiership that had us talking. The West Country club was floundering around in the relegation rip tide. Some Cassandra-like voices prophesied an almost apocalyptic finale with Bath battling Leeds for the Premiership’s last lifeboat.

"For once I was not one of the siren voices. Bath always had too much ability for the drop; I was certain they would emerge from their miasma but it didn’t cross my mind that Round 22 would see them playing for a place in the play-offs. Their run has been the equivalent of a racehorse missing the break by 15 lengths in a five-furlong sprint and winning the race with a length in hand. It just doesn’t happen – until this season."

The axe has fallen on Newcastle's Steve Bates © Getty Images

Wasps coach Shaun Edwards ponders the recent spate of sackings and resignations at the bottom of the Guinness Premiership in The Guardian.

"Where does the axe stop? One by one, moving up the table from Worcester, the side who will be relegated to the Championship, three Guinness Premiership coaches have been shown the door in little over a week.

"Cecil Duckworth reviewed the situation at Sixways, pronounced himself unhappy and left Mike Ruddock to do the decent thing. Worcester announced that he had resigned as director of rugby. The same day Sale said Kingsley Jones would be staying on as director of rugby, but that Jason Robinson was out, Mike Brewer replacing him as head coach. A day later Brewer spoke, making it clear he, not Jones, was in charge. The much-travelled former All Black said: "I've got complete autonomy on the rugby side of things ... what we can't have is the players answering to two masters."

"On Tuesday the axe fell again. Steve Bates may have staved off relegation but that was not enough for Newcastle's owner, Dave Thompson, who thanked Bates for his contribution, wished him the best and showed him the door, saying he expected better than another season dodging the bullet. Bates would be entitled to ask why Newcastle have bumped along the bottom for so much of the professional era, especially after getting off to such a bright start."

Chris Hewett believes that the answer to England's scrummaging problems may lie with Bath's returning loosehead David Flatman, in The Independent

"England's great leaps forward in the Test arena have not been blindingly obvious this season – to most eyes, they have taken a series of small steps backwards – and their work in the scrum, the very foundation of their game, has been particularly unimpressive. This might be about to change, just in time for the build-up to next year's World Cup. The Bath prop David Flatman, last capped in 2002, has recovered from his latest injury hassle and is ready to challenge for a place on next month's five-match trip to Australia and New Zealand.

"Indisputably the most effective loose-head scummager currently available to the national team – his rejection by the manager Martin Johnson has been one of the mysteries of the age – Flatman has been struggling with a biceps problem in recent weeks. But Steve Meehan, the Bath coach, confirmed yesterday that the 30-year-old forward would "play a part" in this weekend's Premiership meeting with Leeds, which the West Countrymen must win to secure a place in the semi-finals."

Lewis Moody is ready to take over the England captaincy if required following news that Steve Borthwick has lost his battle to recover from a knee injury. Mick Cleary and Gavin Mair report in the Daily Telegraph.

"Moody took over from the Saracens lock for the final match of England's Six Nations campaign against France in Paris. Borthwick is still experiencing pain from the knee injury that ruled him out of that match, the first he had missed since taking over as captain on Martin Johnson's appointment as manager in the summer of 2008.

"If I were asked to do the job again, I'd absolutely love it," said Moody, who has had no contact on the matter with the England management yet. I was only filling in for Steve but I'd support whoever was asked to be captain."

There will be no more playing careers such as that of Mike Catt, who has finally called time after 18 years representing Bath and London Irish. David Hands writes in The Times.

"It has been a remarkable journey for the boy from Port Elizabeth, who will be 39 in September. Seven years ago he lashed the ball into touch to seal England’s World Cup final victory over Australia in Sydney; four years later he captained England against France at Twickenham, where once he had endured the jeers of a crowd who did not consider him worthy of a place in England’s back division.

Catt played in four World Cups, the last of them in France in 2007 when he appeared in what was probably his most effective position, inside centre. But he had talent enough to play with equal facility at fly half and full back in a career of 75 England caps, and if he can bring to coaching the same vision he brought as a player, a new generation of backs will be the beneficiaries."

The £4m Guinness Premiership salary cap is being blamed for the failure of an English club to reach a European final this season and Leicester are pushing for a re-think, Paul Rees writes in The Guardian.

"Apart from 1996, when English clubs did not take part in the first Heineken Cup, and 1999, when the clubs imposed a boycott for political reasons, England have always been represented in at least one European final. This season, Toulouse will play Biarritz in the Heineken Cup final at Stade de France on 22 May and the following day Toulon will play Cardiff Blues in the Amlin Challenge Cup.

"The Premiership is split on the issue of the salary cap. While clubs like Leicester and Northampton, who average five-figure crowds, have long advocated that the cap be either raised or abolished others, such as Sale and Wasps, who struggle to attract 10,000 spectators to their football grounds, fear that such a move would lead to a wealthy few dominating the Premiership and hogging England's places in the Heineken Cup."

Sir Clive Woodward, the man who masterminded England’s rise to the top of the world, believes Martin Johnson’s current team could be built around such outstanding young talents as Danny Cipriani, Shane Geraghty and Ben Youngs. He spoke to Matt Hampson in the latest edition of Rugby World magazine.

"England need to field an incredibly quick team, playing at a pace even the southern hemisphere can’t match," Sir Clive, now Performance Director for the British Olympic Association, told Hampson.

"I’d have liked to see the team built around Ben Youngs, Danny Cipriani and Shane Geraghty over the past two years. They’re among the most talented players I’ve seen in a long time. They could be as talented as Matt Dawson, Jonny Wilkinson and Will Greenwood at their best. There is also real competition, notably from Joe Simpson and Toby Flood.

"I first saw Cipriani play when he was 11, my son Joe played next to him. It was clear then he was a special talent. You need to spot talent at that level, possibly even earlier. You need to look younger and younger and get the right people involved in the talent identification process and their ongoing development.’"

There was a time when Olly Barkley was seen as one of the 'bad boys' of rugby but, as Paul Ackford of the Sunday Telegraph discovers, the centre has had some life-changing experiences.

"Olly Barkley was late, which didn’t bode well. ''The last time we spoke I found you spiky,'' I reminded him. “What do you mean: spiky? A bit reactive?”

''Yeah. But it was more than that. You didn’t seem happy in your own skin. That’s a huge cliché, I know, and you might have been cross for some reason, but that was my sense of you.''

“That’s fair enough. I can be quite spiky, but the last year was one of the worst of my life and it’s taught me an unbelievable amount about where my friends are, and where my heart is. It sounds really cheesy and spiritual, but I feel at peace with where I am at the moment.”

Writing in The Independent, Chris Hewett believes it was no surprise to see the Rugby Football Union demolish the Premiership fraternity's tentative moves towards an expansion of the top league.

"This joint assault on the expansion idea may heighten the tensions between the union and its elite clubs, which, despite [RFU chief executive Francis] Baron's insistence that relations had "never been better", are rarely anything other than strained.

Although the Premiership teams deny that an end to relegation has reappeared on their agenda, the truth of the matter is that it never went away. Some club chairmen and chief executives identified relegation as a serious barrier to business development more than a decade ago and have not changed their minds. Now, with Worcester contemplating a costly descent into the second-tier Championship, the issue is live once again."

Ever wanted to read a rugby player's views on the British General Election? Well, thanks to former England hooker Brian Moore in The Daily Telegraph, you can.

"Add to this the position sport plays in the voters’ psyche and the vicarious popularity a sporting success brings a government and you would expect politicians to recognise the unique position of sport; but no, it remains lumped with the others in Whitehall, fighting for every inch of territory.

"A look at the party election manifestos shows how much regard the politicians really have for sport.

"The Labour manifesto is 78 pages long and out of 30,755 words there were 550 dealing with sport; 1.8 per cent. The Conservative Party equivalent is 131 pages in total, containing 28,850 words of which are 123 words on sport; 0.43 per cent. The Liberal Democrats manifesto has 21,600 words, with 96 words on sport; 0.44 per cent."

Stephen Jones takes a look at Wasps' need for a new stadium in the wake of their successful Twickenham experiment in The Times.

"Wasps are really under pressure now. Not because of their defeat to Bath in an outstanding match at Twickenham last weekend (although they will be bitterly upset at the manner of it) but the size of the attendance that day.

"More than 60,000 went to Twickenham to take part in an outstanding occasion that even some diehard Wasps fans of my acquaintance admitted they thoroughly enjoyed. The feasting in the car park and the high quality of entertainment before and after the game must have compensated in some way for the bitter feeling of defeat.

"The match proved that there are a huge number of potential Wasps supporters out there. The number of those dressed in Wasps garb at Twickenham was around two or three times the amount they could cram in to their own stadium in High Wycombe."

Tony Roche builds up Wasps' meeting with Cardiff Blues as a clash between England and Wales in The Independent.

"When it comes to flying the flag, no club does it better than Wasps.

"A 60,000 Twickenham crowd created a fabulous atmosphere at the club's superbly organised St George's Day game last weekend during which the England banner was everywhere to be seen – unlike English clubs in Europe this weekend.

"The Heineken Cup, which Wasps have won twice, contains no English representatives in the semi-finals this weekend for the first time since 2003. Wasps are the nation's sole remaining European competitor and they face Cardiff Blues on Saturday in the Amlin Challenge Cup semi-final at Adams Park."

Robert Kitson talks salaray caps with Wasps owner Steve Hayes in The Guardian.

"English rugby union is facing a crackdown on breaches of the salary cap, with administrators considering sanctions to match those which have seen an Australian rugby league club stripped of two championship titles. It is believed that one high-profile Guinness Premiership club could be charged next month amid concerns of widespread abuses.

"The London Wasps owner, Steve Hayes, is among those who allege the salary cap rules are being cynically exploited by certain individuals, whom Hayes accuses of defrauding the rest of the league and jeopardising the health of the professional game. Hayes says it would not surprise him if a well-known Premiership team were to be investigated.

"I've no hard evidence, just common sense," he told the Guardian. "You look at what's happening and what one club have been doing. I think they're going to have a challenge."

Worcester ponder their relegation © Getty Images

Worcester have slipped out of the Guinness Premiership, not that Peter Bills cares too much. Read his latest for the The Independent.

"Worcester's catastrophic relegation from the Guinness Premiership proves two points.

"Men who invent heating boilers are not necessarily the best qualified to run rugby clubs and you cannot ignore warning signals before your eyes. Worcester have been guilty on both counts and pay the price. Frankly, they're no great loss to the Premiership.

"Worcester have been in the top flight of English rugby for the past six years and for most of that time they've done little except scuff along in a perennial relegation battle. The last three seasons, out of 12 teams in the league, they've finished 11th, 10th and 11th. And even the season before that, 2005/6, although they finished 8th in the table, they were only one win better off than Bristol, who ended up 11th of 12."

Mick Cleary moots the possibility of the RFU introducing lifetime bans for eye-gougers in The Daily Telegraph.

"An appeal hearing against a 78-week suspension handed down to Whitehaven's Callum Jennings is to be heard in Coventry, the original disciplinary panel on March 16 ruling that Jennings had been guilty of ''reckless'' play when handing-off Aspatria's Alan Hedworth, who subsequently lost the sight in his eye and will never play rugby again.

"There is also concern about the number of incidents of foul play that have led to police inquiries and possible criminal investigation. There are 14 such cases outstanding at the moment. The RFU believes that there may be more such cases that are as yet unknown to them.

"One of those investigations involves a cup tie between Kent rivals Gravesend and Maidstone in January, which resulted in Gravesend No 8 Clarence Harding, 26, losing the sight in his right eye after going to ground to present the ball to his team-mates."

David Hands assesses the pros and cons of England taking Steve Bortwick to Australia this summer in The Times.

"Saracens, by their sustained success in the Guinness Premiership, have made certain that they will see their captain again before the season is over.

"Then it is up to England to decide whether Steve Borthwick, whose run of 20 successive games as England captain ended last month because of injury, should take up the leader’s baton again in Australia in June.

"Borthwick withdrew from the final game of the RBS Six Nations Championship, on March 20 against France, with a form of tendinitis in his left knee and has not played since. He has not required surgery but has undergone a demanding period of rehabilitation in an attempt to cure the problem that has affected him, off and on, over the past year."

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, former England international Brian Moore doesn't believe expanding the Premiership is in the best interests of the national team.

"Although the business aspects of the plan can be rationalised, the one thing that this proposal cannot claim is that it is in the wider interests of the English national team. The best way of preparing players to compete at international level is for them to play an agreed number of games in the most competitive environment possible, thereby reducing the gap in standards between club and international rugby. Additionally, the most effective way of developing nascent talent is by distilling it into a limited number of teams.

"If you had a blank sheet of paper and could draw up the best possible structure for non-international rugby it would never include the present arrangement. It is clear from the present Guinness Premiership that there is simply not enough talent in England to fill 12 squads, never mind 14."

Worcester are on the brink of Premiership relegation, but Chris Latham fights on. Paul Ackford talks to the former Wallaby in The Sunday Telegraph.

"It's an image that resonates strongly, underlining the grounding sanity of club rugby that Latham, Worcester's full-back for two years following a glittering nine-year spell with the Wallabies, and Phil Vickery, returning from another horrendous injury, can share a moment of reflection and mirth in the closing stages of a match where Worcester's continued existence in the Premiership was at issue. Yet there is also a poignancy, an acknowledgement that distinguished careers are coming to an end, and that the brief encounter had more to do with past exploits than future prospects.

"Is there an element of raging against the dying of the light for Latham? I watched him in training this week and there is still that sense of urgency and control from him as he bellows instructions to colleagues less gifted in the reading of situations. But there is also no doubt that, at 34, in the hurly-burly of a young man's game, his mind is issuing orders his body can't quite follow."

Saracens have turned their season around © Getty Images

Former England coach Brian Ashton salutes the second coming of Brendan Venter's Saracens in The Independent

"A lot of things were said about Saracens during their long unbeaten run in the Premiership before Christmas, few of them positive or polite.

"Brendan Venter's team may have picked up results – always important in a results-driven business – but they were roundly criticised for playing a conservative, kick-based game described by some as "anti-rugby". If I was less than thrilled by some of the things I saw from them then, I'm happy to report that I've found their recent change of approach inspiring.

"It is no easy thing to stage a successful relaunch two-thirds of the way through a season, especially one as fundamental as this. I can do nothing but applaud Brendan in developing a fresh style that is confrontational in many different ways, rather than simply the most obvious way, and I cannot help but wonder how influential Andy Farrell is being behind the scenes."

Will Greenwood takes a look at Bath and Wasps as the 'annoyingly good' sides prepare to face off at Twickenham in The Daily Telegraph.

"And that is why Bath annoy me. They just have to try to be different. But, confusingly, it's also the reason why I find myself cheering them on. I can't help loving their cavalier, devil-may-care ways. When games are tight and they are under pressure, they still want to have a go. I think the irritation comes from the knowledge that I would have loved to play for them. They have talent and a head coach who has imagination, wit, nerve and verve.

"And yet their insistence on playing it one way so often finds them almost losing games they could have won twice over, which I also happen to find incredibly annoying. I told you I was confused. But this afternoon Bath are in good company because if there is one thing that their opponents Wasps do, it's get right under my skin.

"I really don't know how they do it. They have been rubbish for large chunks of this year and yet here they are going head to head with Bath for a slot in the last four and a play-off place. How do they do that? How do they always manage to time a run and get their players back ready for a final surge just as the rest of us are getting ready for British Summer Time? It winds me up."

Robert Kitson evaluates the merits of relegation in the Guinness Premiership prior to Leeds' meeting with Worcester in The Guardian.

"No wonder Gary Hetherington, Leeds Carnegie's chief executive, sounds tense. Tomorrow's game against Worcester is, he says, the biggest in the club's history, with huge implications for the sport in England. Avoiding relegation from the Guinness Premiership will be worth £1m to his club, possibly more. Worcester, five points adrift at the bottom heading into the penultimate weekend, can sense their own best-laid plans going horribly pear‑shaped. "It's like the Christians and the Lions," mutters Hetherington. "There's a macabre fascination about it."

"But hang on. Not everything is quite what it seems in the Premiership's annual macho game of chicken. There are some juicy conspiracy theories floating around and the juiciest goes like this: if Worcester finish bottom and Exeter Chiefs win the inaugural Championship play-off final, it would leave two of Premier Rugby's senior shareholders (Worcester and Bristol) outside the magic circle. Some predict that would precipitate a rapid rethink and give birth to a 14-team Premiership, possibly split into two conferences. Fanciful? Not according to informed sources close to the debate.

"Whatever unfolds, the whole sacred concept of relegation has rarely looked less secure. Traditionally, we have all been reared on the integrity of the Rugby Football Union pyramid, or at least the possibility that any ordinary Joe from Rotherham to Old Reigatians can dream the dream if he unearths a kindly millionaire backer. According to Hetherington, such romantic ideals are increasingly Jurassic. "The current system is so debilitating for clubs," he argues. "With the spectre of relegation hanging over you, it becomes impossible to get ahead in terms of your support base and player retention."

Brendan Gallagher comes over all patriotic on the occasion of St. George's Day in The Daily Telegraph.

"We are spoiled rotten in this country, often without realising or appreciating it. If you violently disagree and want to afford top dog status to another nation, let's be hearing from you in but first consider what English sport and competitors have given us - and continue to give.

"England is a packed Twickenham and whiskey nips on frosty afternoons and singing Abide with Me at Wembley. It is a Bobby Charlton piledriver, a Wally Hammond cover drive and Lawrence Dallaglio's tears as the national anthem plays."

Stuart Barnes previews Leeds' mammoth Guinness Premiership relegation showdown with Worcester in The Times.

"Neil Back is one win away from what he said would be the greatest achievement of his career if he manages to keep Leeds in the top flight. Such has been their 2010 that Leeds will be free from all relegation concerns a week ahead of schedule if they win on Sunday.

"Worcester must have been preparing for something akin to a shootout this weekend but Leeds' sensational away win at London Irish means Worcester have to win both their games and hope Bath beat Leeds if they are to overtake them.

"It is a tall order. Leeds have been a superbly drilled unit that has played at or near its best when Back has demanded the highest level."

Worcester owner Cecil Duckworth has pledged to continue his multi-million pound backing of the club even if they are relegated from the Guinness Premiership.Mick Cleary writes in the Daily Telegraph.

"Worcester are almost certain to go down if they lose to Leeds at Headingley on Sunday, after six years in the English game's top flight.

"Duckworth acknowledged that mistakes might have been made three years ago, when former coach John Brain was sacked, and that a full review of resources would have to take place if the worst came to pass. The former Gloucester director of rugby, Dean Ryan, has been linked to Worcester. "I've not spoken to Dean," Duckworth said. "He's a very able person and does live fairly locally. That's the press getting two and two to equal five."

"The man who has overseen Worcester's rise through the ranks from level eight status at a personal cost in the region of £20 million insisted relegation would be just "a hiccup" in the long-term project to establish the club as a leading entity."

Lawrence Dallaglio has said that it is time that St George’s Day is celebrated with pride and that patriotism should not solely be the preserve of the Celtic nations. Mark Souster writes in The Times.

"A survey this week indicated that the English are the least likely people in Europe to celebrate their nationality, in public at least, because of political correctness and a fear of being accused of racism. For Dallaglio, the former England captain, this is a nonsense that should be corrected.

"He hopes that London Wasps’ inaugural St George’s Day match against Bath at Twickenham, being held a day late on Saturday, will be an occasion to bang the drum for England. Almost 60,000 tickets have been sold, with at least £1 from each going to Help for Heroes, the Armed Forces charity.

"So many other Bank Holidays and national days are marked in this country and not necessarily the one we should be celebrating,” Dallaglio, now a club director, said yesterday. “St George’s Day has been associated with jingoism and politics, which it should not be. That doesn’t happen in any of the Celtic countries. I have never had a problem celebrating my Englishness, on and off the pitch."

Wasps, one of the great names in world rugby and among the most successful Premiership teams of the professional era, have been threatened with a winding-up order from the tax authorities over unpaid sums totalling more than £1m – a quarter of their officially sanctioned playing budget. Chris Hewett writes in The Independent.

"While Mark Rigby, the former Wasps flanker and captain who now serves as executive chairman, insisted yesterday that there was "no question" of the club going to the wall, this development will send a chill wind blowing through the English game. The Londoners, twice European champions and winners of the domestic title on four occasions between 2003 and 2008, may not be the wealthiest of the Premiership's elite sides, but together with Leicester they are comfortably the most respected.

"They are not alone in having an uncomfortable time of it with HMRC. A number of clubs have become entangled in complex issues surrounding image rights agreements with leading players. Only last month, Newcastle were in negotiations over exactly how much they owed in respect of commercial arrangements involving some of their biggest box-office attractions: the England outside-half Jonny Wilkinson, the New Zealand prop Carl Hayman, the Australian full-back Matthew Burke and his fellow Wallaby, the back-row forward Owen Finegan. Wilkinson, Burke and Finegan are no longer at Kingston Park, while Hayman is due to leave for the mega-rich French club Toulon at the end of the season, but tax liabilities have a nasty way of lingering even after a player departs."

Writing in The Guardian, Rob Kitson highlights the fact that a change in refereeing interpretation appears to have re-energised the Guinness Premiership season.

"Another week, another giant leap for the popularity of club rugby union. Hard on the heels of Saracens attracting more fans to Wembley than attended last weekend's derby between Manchester City and Manchester United, Wasps confirmed yesterday that they are expecting a crowd in excess of 60,000 for their St George's Day celebratory game against Bath at Twickenham on Saturday.

"With the weather set fair and tickets still available, it is even possible the final figure will be close to 70,000, a number eclipsed for a regular league fixture only by Harlequins' record-breaking gate of 76,716 for last December's Big Game. The difference between now and then is that the paying public can expect a more free-flowing spectacle following the change in refereeing interpretation which has re-energised the Guinness Premiership season.

"It is less than a month since the emphasis at the breakdown was tweaked in favour of the attacking side, but the Wasps coach Shaun Edwards hailed the initiative yesterday as the best thing to happen to the sport in ages. "I think they were very brave to say, 'We've got a problem,' " said Edwards. "We needed the game to open up again and it's now being refereed as it was two to three years ago. I really admire the people at the top for being man enough to say: 'We need to make a change.' Thank God they have, because all the top teams want to play rugby. We're in the entertainment business, as well as trying to win things."

The financial status of the Rugby Football Union altered radically during the stewardship of chief executive Francis Baron - writing in the Daily Telegraph, Brian Moore reflects on his tenure.

"From an operating deficit of £10 million when he arrived in 1998, the RFU last year announced a turnover of £119 million with a profit of £9 million. The business also has a balance sheet that shows a healthy value of £150 million. It would be wrong and churlish to deny Baron credit for this success, however it is telling that there are those within the RFU who would like to and there will be few tears shed when he departs. Why is this so?

"Even accounting for the general antipathy for those that earn a lot of money and wield executive power, there are other reasons. Baron's RFU roadshow, which sought to take the organisation's vision to the masses, was undermined because it simply confirmed the suspicion of many of the attenders that Baron was insufferably self-satisfied. Those holding this view point to the £500,000 statue illustrating the five core values of the RFU which will adorn the South Stand area at Twickenham and which they say is an Ozymandias-like tribute to Baron."

The 37-year-old former England and Wasps rubgy captain reveals he has a particular interest in the business of Italian food in an interview with the Sunday Times.

"How much did you earn last year? I earn money from different revenue streams but my income is really not as much as people might think. To be honest, I don’t know the final sum — let’s just say that it’s six figures but I’m working on seven figures.

"Last autumn, my father and I launched our own range of pasta sauces. It’s a competitive market at a competitive time and I think we will see the benefits but not for a little while yet. Although Sacla is a very well-established business, the actual brand is a start-up and needs time, energy, money and effort. [The premium pasta sauce market is worth about £80m. Dallaglio and his father receive half the profits from their range.]

"...Do you own a property? Yes, I own two — our house in Richmond and one in Portugal, in the Algarve. We bought the Algarve property — which has four bedrooms, a garden and a pool — in 2003 and, depending on the exchange rate, it’s probably worth between £500,000 and £1m. It’s a holiday home rather than somewhere that provides rental income.

"We bought the five-bedroom Richmond house in 2001 and I’m getting it valued shortly. I would say it’s probably worth somewhere between £2m and £3m. The first home I owned was a houseboat in Twickenham, for which I paid about £12,000. I lived there for four years and rented the spare room out to one of my fellow rugby players — we fitted in somehow."

Bath's players limber up at what will be their new training base at Farleigh House © Getty Images

According to David Flatman in the Independent on Sunday, all the Bath boys are big kids again after new owner Bruce Craig introduced the players to a fantasyland of a new home.

"If we, the Bath Rugby players, could design the ideal owner for our beloved club, he would be a West Country boy, a Bath fan, a rugby fanatic and, of course, in possession of a few quid that he did not mind throwing at the badge. He would enjoy daydreaming about what this club could be, and would do whatever it took to make his visions come to life. I am not sure if one of the team secretly wrote in to Jim'll Fix It, but it turns out not only does this bloke exist, he happens to have turned up and bought the lot.

"The whole mystery tour began at the Rec early on Wednesday morning when we were ushered on to our team coaches with no clue as to our destination. Rumours were flying up and down the aisle (I convinced the Academy players that we were on our way to a cider factory for a bonding session) but, upon arrival, we realised that however sure we were that our information was accurate, we had been wrong.

"We pulled into Farleigh House in silence; the place is like something from a Jane Austen novel. The hush was quickly replaced by gasps and, inevitably, more "definite" rumours from under the breath of David Barnes. We did wonder if it was just a day trip to Luke Watson's new country pile but we were swiftly corrected. Before I could even pour a coffee or raid the exceptionally well-furnished biscuit tray, I, along with other senior players, was ushered into a room containing two men: Nick Blofeld, our CEO, and an infinitely better coiffured individual. Bruce Craig introduced himself as our new owner and told us that this place, with a bit of digging here and there, was now the home of Bath Rugby. The schoolyard levels of exuberance and sheer volume were a memory and the reaction was, unusually, complete silence. I do hope Bruce was not perturbed by this response to his newsflash; we were all, to a man, stunned."

Stepping out of the shadow of Jonny Wilkinson is a daunting task for Leicester outside-half Toby Flood, and he must prove he has the game-management skills to take England over the line according to Paul Ackford in the Sunday Telegraph.

"Toby Flood speaks rather quickly, the words coming out in a rush. And why not? At 24 he is England's outside-half, he is chasing his first championship with Leicester and on Sunday afternoon he is returning to his old stamping ground at Newcastle, a club where he grew up alongside Jonny Wilkinson, Jamie Noon, Mathew Tait and the rest, and where Leicester last won a Premiership fixture in 2004. He has a lot to be excited about.

"But, and here's the thing, it isn't good to be too excited at this point in the season with the play-offs looming and Test matches to negotiate shortly with England against the Wallabies in Perth and Sydney. Rob Andrew, Flood's long-time mentor at Newcastle, says so. And Flood himself knows so. Excitement has its place, but when you're charged with controlling team affairs, and when you're trying to make the jump from a highly competent international footballer to a world-class operator, other qualities are more highly prized. Like getting the job done."

Three games to go and four teams are in a right mess – Worcester worst of all. Forget the big-name signings, the amazing stadium, the packed houses, relegation waits for no club according to Will Greenwood in the Daily Telegraph.

"There is no room for errors. You get it wrong, and for one club it is bye bye. I have been relegated so I know that right now life is miserable. Sadly it is a self-induced misery because if the teams had not been so bad on such a consistent basis they would not be in the mess they are right now.

"Harlequins were rubbish, and we deserved to go down. The table does not lie. Injuries can contribute, so can players leaving, but 22 games is plenty of time to find some form. If you deserve to stay up, then you do.

"Relegation is normally down to poor signings, lack of focus, lack of desire, or too much indiscipline. An inability to stick to a game-plan goes a long way towards opening the trap door as well. Get the fear of the drop and all of a sudden teams start playing the "mustn't lose" game-plan, as opposed to the "let's go win this" strategy."

Pat Sanderson tells The Independent's Chris Hewett that bottom-of-the-table Worcester can still rescue a punishing season – starting with victory over Wasps.

"It may be tough at the top, but it's a fair bit tougher at the bottom.

"Ask Pat Sanderson, the one-time England back-row forward and occasional national captain, who in recent weeks has discovered the joys of playing high-level rugby while poking his tongue clean through a hole where part of his cheek had once been and experienced the pleasures of "triple stitching", a surgical technique that does what it says on the tin. "I cracked heads with Dale Rasmussen and the cut went right down to my skull," he reports, with a degree of gruesome relish. "I needed stitches on stitches ... on stitches. Still, I gave up on my face ages ago."

"Some people think he should give up on Worcester as well, but they might as well whistle at the moon."

The takeover of Bath and the mooted departure of Worcester owner Cecil Duckworth has Shaun Edwards considering the merits of the current Premiership system, in The Guardian.

"It makes you wonder about English rugby's priorities – whether we are right in our dedication to promotion and relegation. In the past I have come down on the pro side of the argument, if only marginally. I understand the English fascination with failure – the tall poppy syndrome. For instance, where else would attention have been so concentrated on a football club like Newcastle, when a great man like Alan Shearer was doing his high-wire act, wobbling, without a safety net.

"It has always seemed right to reward the kind of industry that Duckworth put in to Worcester on their way up. The drop also produced rugby that was never dull. Look at the table today and a third of the clubs are still dodging the bullet, so with the battle for the play-off places going on at the top there will rarely be a game with nothing on it.

"However, the bottom line is whether the Premiership will be a better place next season if Worcester, Leeds, Sale or Newcastle go down and are replaced by Bristol, Exeter or any of the other eight clubs battling it out in the Championship play-offs. I know Bristol were once one of the greats and that Exeter have invested heavily, but the Premiership feels right as it is."

Bath's current home at The Rec must be re-developed if the team are to stay within the city centre © Getty Images

Multi-millionaire owner Bruce Craig has grand plans for one of rugby's great clubs - Bath. Chris Hewett writes for The Independent.

"No one expected Bath, still one of the great names in world rugby despite falling a long way short of world-class standards over the last decade, to find themselves a new owner before building themselves a new stadium, but yesterday, the France-based multi-millionaire businessman Bruce Craig materialised as if out of nowhere to buy the club lock, stock and barrel, thereby bringing to a sudden end the 14-year stewardship of Andrew Brownsword, one of the original union entrepreneurs who changed the face of the club game in England.

"Unlike Brownsword, a self-confessed rugby novice who bought the club in 1996 because he felt it represented the best of the city he loved, Craig has a strong union background. Born in neighbouring Bristol, he was a good enough as a schoolboy player to be a final triallist at England Under-19s level and went on to perform at a high standard in Paris with Metro – now known as Racing-Metro 92, who are challenging hard for a place in next season's Heineken Cup.

"In his other life, he was making serious money on the distribution side of the international pharmaceuticals industry, and in January he and his fellow shareholders sold their business for the not inconsiderable sum of £975m. A tiny fraction of that figure would transform Bath's fortunes and re-establish them as one of Europe's biggest hitters, alongside Leicester and Toulouse, Leinster and Munster."

Wasps prop Phil Vickery is set to make his comeback from injury this weekend © Getty Images

Former England captain Phil Vickery talks to Brendan Gallagher of The Telegraph about his five-month lay-off and his hopes of a return to the internationa fold.

"Phil Vickery used to be the most superstitious bloke born west of the Tamar – which is saying something – but for a good while now Cornwall's finest has declined to salute solitary magpies, pointedly walks under ladders and steadfastly refuses to touch wood when discussing his future.

"'As far as injuries are concerned bad luck has haunted me so I stopped that superstitious stuff a few years ago,' Vickery admitted. 'Let's be honest, it wasn't working so I just leave it to fate now. Whatever will be will be, and over a long career things tend to even themselves out.'

"The England World Cup winner and proud Lion is poised to return from his third career-threatening injury – two back, one neck – in the past eight years. As long as nothing untowards happens at training this week, Vickery will play some part in Wasps' visit to Worcester on Saturday after five months on the sidelines."

Danny Cipriani is still hopeful of returning to England colours before the 2011 Rugby World Cup © Getty Images

England's most charismatic rugby player is heading Down Under to ply his trade, and taking his pooch with him, because he doesn't feel wanted by Johnno and Co. The Independent on Sunday's Hugh Godwin speaks to Danny Cipriani.

"England's coaches have let it be known they have a problem with his attitude. Is he terminal trouble or just a little temperamental? On Wasps' list of club fines, Cipriani tends to be near the top for stuff like missing a pre-match walk-through or not mopping the weights-room floor. Yet logic says he would not have survived seven years at this club without the overall dedication of a serious sportsman.

"...Of course it may simply be that Cipriani hasn't got it: the aptitude, that is, not the message. We love his daring flat passes and fleet of foot, honed in athletics track sessions with Margot Wells, but also recall the charged-down kicks as England's fly-half. Johnson's attack coach, Brian Smith, has him down as a full-back, if anything. Cipriani insists he is still available to tour with England this summer, and play in the autumn, and go to the 2011 World Cup – if they want him. The eight-month stints with the Rebels (with time off for Christmas) in 2011 and 2012 clash only with the Six Nations. Perhaps it has all been a calculated gamble, and "Johnno" and "Cips" will kiss and make up. Perhaps not. "It's to do with making you feel wanted," says Cipriani. "If it was up to me, I'd be giving players confidence, not knocking them down."

Quins' Tom Williams paid a heavy price for his role in the fake blood scandal © Getty Images

A year on from the notorious episode of cheating, The Times' David Hands asks senior figures in rugby to assess its impact.

"Provoking anguished debates about gamesmanship, pro-fessionalism and discipline, it was one of the worst controversies that English rugby union has known. It sent the game into a convulsion that reached its climax when one of the sport’s most respected figures, Dean Richards, was suspended from any involvement in rugby union for three years.

"The episode that became known as Bloodgate started on April 12, 2009, when Harlequins played Leinster in the quarter-finals of the Heineken Cup. By the time it had concluded two medical practitioners working for the club had been suspended, Richards had lost his job as director of rugby at the Twickenham Stoop and Charles Jillings had resigned as chairman.

"But was that an end to the affair or are the effects still being felt at Harlequins and across the sport in England? Could the use of a fake-blood capsule happen again? A year on, senior figures in the game discuss the long-term consequences of Bloodgate, including the new code of practice among Guinness Premiership clubs. Has rugby union learnt from its most notorious incident of cheating?"

Leicester are set to lose a second high-profile player to rivals Bath with Sam Vesty set to join Lewis Moody at The Rec next season. Tigers chief executive Peter Wheeler is resigned to the loss and says the Guinness Premiership salary cap constraints hinder player retention - he talks to Paul Rees in The Guardian.

"Leicester fans have expressed concern at the loss of two players who have spent their senior careers with the club and have questioned whether the Tigers have been financially constrained by building the £14m Caterpillar Stand, which was opened earlier this season.

"The new stand was a big commitment and it will take time for it to come to its potential," the Leicester chief executive, Peter Wheeler, said. "We are pleased with how our gates have picked up but we are not selling out every week, as we did before. It will not be too long before we do. We can only spend on wages what the cap allows and that also goes for our academy. We are not the only club that feels the cap is more trouble than it is worth. It is costly to police and administering it takes a lot of time. The benefits of it are not definable apart from an evenly based league in which any one team can beat any other on a given day.

"We also have to think about Europe. England only has one team in this weekend's Heineken Cup quarter-finals and while that is not a concern as a one-off, it would be if it happened again next season. Having a cap makes it more difficult to hold on to players and while you would like to keep someone like Lewis Moody for all his career, the cap means they can often get better wages elsewhere."

England boss Martin Johnson has vowed to walk away if he feels he is not up to the job © Getty Images

England manager Martin Johnson talks to the Mail on Sunday's Ian Stafford about Martin Sir Clive Woodward's possible return, the critics who deride England and putting his reputation on the line.

"When Martin Johnson cycles through the countryside around his Leicestershire home, he often stops at the top of a low ridge. There he gets off and thoughtfully surveys the peaceful rural scene.

In his mind’s eye, England’s rugby manager imagines the carnage and chaos witnessed at this spot outside the village of Naseby — across the county border in Northamptonshire — more than three and a half centuries ago, when the rout of the Royalists by Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army signalled the beginning of the end for the king, Charles I, and the first English civil war.

Johnson, a keen student of history, is aware that in the aftermath of a disappointing Six Nations campaign for his England team, both he and his players have been accused of being too often the Roundheads, and not the Cavaliers.

‘Maybe,’ he acknowledged last week. ‘But, remember, Cromwell won the war.’ Johnson may accompany his quip with a wry smile, but the demands of attempting to rebuild England’s rugby fortunes upon the colossus who led his country to World Cup glory seven years ago have been immense."

Shamed Harlequins are still drained one year on from Bloodgate affair - Paul Ackford writes in the Sunday Telegraph.

"In the ensuing months Bloodgate has never fully gone away, from the club or from the rugby world in general.

“The shadow cast was darker and longer than we anticipated,” [chairman Malcom] Wall admitted. “I was in New Zealand in January and picked up some of the rugby magazines which had published their end-of-season reviews. There were pages and pages on the subject, and it was the same in the Australian media.

"I also met up with Richie Riddell, a New Zealander who had played for Quins in the amateur era. He had flown from Auckland to Melbourne for the horse racing and he and his mates were wearing Quins blazers. When they got to Melbourne they were asked if they had anything to declare, and the customs officer specifically inquired whether they were carrying any blood capsules."

Northampton boss Jim Mallinder reveals to the Sunday Times' Stephen Jones that his goal is to coach England.

Frankly, Mallinder is doing a towering job. He picked up the club in the second division, after incoherence over too many years had condemned them to relegation. They burst back into the Guinness Premiership with a perfect season and confirmed their status last season. They have already won the first trophy of this season, [the LV Anglo-Welsh Cup, ]they are near the top of the division and on Saturday they play in the quarter-final of the Heineken Cup, away to Munster in Limerick. Such is the promise of this burgeoning, fiery team, that this is not by any means an impossible mission.

He has also brought to the fore a raft of English dazzle — Ben Foden, Courtney Lawes, Chris Ashton, Shane Geraghty and others. He is unquestionably the leading English-born contender to coach the national side and, if timings are correct, he could well coach England sooner rather than later. It is a monumental career revival."

Tipped to be England captain until he broke his shoulder a year ago, Tom Rees could once again be the missing piece of Martin Johnson's jigsaw. Chris Hewett writes in The Independent.

" Wasps lost at Franklin's Gardens, it was not in the way many people expected them to lose against the form side in the country. Thanks in large part to Rees' contribution, not only as a back-row hunter-gatherer but also as a quick thinking and decisive leader, they pressed the Midlanders to within an inch of their lives and announced themselves as strong play-off candidates into the bargain.

"It left me pretty sore," Rees confesses, "but I expected that. The thing that did surprise me was playing the full 80 minutes, although the penny dropped when I saw Serge Betsen come on to replace Joe Worsley instead of me. When I got home, I barely moved from the sofa. I raised myself once to answer the door, thinking it was the pizza delivery man. It turned out to be the drug-test people." Oh, the glamour of top-flight rugby: an afternoon spent mixing it with an opponent as intimidating as the wild-eyed Neil Best, followed by an evening peeing into a pot."

Shaun Edwards argues against raising the Guinness Premiership's salary cap, arguing it would be a backwards step and would reduce competitiveness in his Guardian column.

"Without the salary cap, rugby could easily have gone down the football route where success often depends on the depth of the owner's pockets. I'm not saying that clubs have not bought their way to silverware – Sale's owner, Brian Kennedy, admitted only recently that their present difficulties are in part the consequence of buying big to become champions – but playing budgets have not been ridiculously out of kilter.

"OK, I know there are clubs who want the ceiling raised, but equally there are plenty of clubs who can't afford to spend the £4m allowed. The result is a league in which, on their day, any side can beat any other. Look at the table. This is the sharp end of the season and seven points cover the bottom five clubs, while six sides have a realistic shot at the play-offs. Between now and the end of the season almost every game will be significant, which suggests a league in good health."

Stephen Jones salutes the elder statesmen of the game in The Times.

"Two Leicester front rowers have been in the news this week. Julian White, the prop, aged 36, has signed a new contract with the club. Mefin Davies, the hooker who is all of 38 this year, is leaving – for a brand new contract at the Ospreys.

"The Ospreys lost heavily to the Newport Gwent Dragons last weekend. In a desperate attempt to drag the match back in the second half, they threw on Filo Tiatia, who is 39. Gareth Thomas, until recently of Cardiff Blues, has found not only a new club at 36, but a new sport – rugby league, for the Crusaders.

"Meanwhile, back at Leicester, White and Davies could find themselves up against Bath’s Danny Grewcock (38) and Duncan Bell (a mere 36) if chosen for Saturday’s game.

"There is always talk about the rigours of the modern game, the intensity, the size of the hits, the demands on players. If I had a pound for every time someone, somewhere in the past 15 years said that careers will get shorter and shorter, then I would be incredibly rich. I am sure I have written it a few times myself."

Peter Bills fears for England at the World Cup due to the standard of refereeing on show in the Premiership in The Independent.

"Rugby's new refereeing interpretations are set to have a major effect at the World Cup next year. That much is being made crystal clear by IRB referee co-ordinator Paddy O'Brien.

"There will be no changes from this policy. By June, when the northern hemisphere countries play Test matches in the southern hemisphere, they must be ready to adapt to the new law interpretations. There will be the same refereeing approach the world over.

"But if England's players are to have any chance of getting to grips with them, then they are going to need far better refereeing than David Pearson offered at Northampton last weekend."

Mick Cleary reviews the changes put in place by Premier Rugby in order to open up the Premiership in The Daily Telegraph.

"Premier Rugby revealed on Monday that it took emergency steps to improve try-scoring rates in the Guinness Premiership and ensure that the stilted style of rugby that so marred the opening months is not seen during the end-of-season run-in.

"Try rates had dropped by an astonishing 38 per cent, prompting Premier Rugby to call a summit meeting with the Rugby Football Union on Feb 24. As a result of what Premier Rugby chief executive, Mark McCafferty calls "a seminal moment", in relations between the two bodies, four measures were agreed to encourage teams and referees to free up play.

"The initiatives were used for the first time during last weekend's Premiership matches, notable for an upturn in try-scoring. aracens ran in seven tries against Newcastle, having previously only scored 16 in 16 league matches."

Brian Moore believes that Rob Andrew has a big job on his hands if he is to convince the rugby public that England are on track in The Daily Telegraph.

"Change it had to come, We knew it all along...But the world looks just the same, And history ain't changed...Meet the new boss, Same as the old boss."

"As Rob Andrew pens his report on the England team's performance this season he should power out the classic track 'Won't Get Fooled Again' by The Who; it should remind him of the mood of the rugby public.

"Against a background of solid scepticism Andrew will have to do a job of truly epic proportions to convince a doubting audience that Martin Johnson is firmly on track to improve English rugby and fulfil his own cheery goal of sustained success at the top of world rugby. And if he thinks one creditable losing performance against the French in their final Six Nations match will obscure hours of unconvincing and unimaginative play, he had better bring a flak jacket with him when he releases the report."

Owen Slot talks to former England and Wasps back Josh Lewsey as he prepares to climb Everest in The Times.

"In terms of sheer unadulterated toughness, rugby union is beginning to look something of a doddle. Josh Lewsey is giving his experiences a resilience ranking and the boot camp in which the England team beasted themselves before the 2003 World Cup, known as the House of Pain, is placed only fourth — and it is soon going to drop to fifth.

"So here you have it in reverse order. Fourth: the House of Pain. Third: military training at Sandhurst. Second: climbing to base camp on K2 (“I was practically dying”). First: his ascent of Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Andes, in January. And he did not even get to the top.

"At the moment of truth, seven hours short of the summit — and when the truth did not remotely interest him — his guide grabbed him round the neck and told him in no uncertain terms that he had to turn round because was not fit enough. As Lewsey recalls, the guide sent him on his way with the words: “Don’t slip, don’t fall. If you do, you are dead.”

Writing in the Sunday Times, Stephen Jones sends out an SOS to the man who steered England to World Cup glory in 2003.

"More than five years ago Sir Clive Woodward drove out of Twickenham, expecting never to return. He had just given a fiery dressing-down to RFU grandees on live television in the media conference marking his exasperated resignation after a glorious tenure as England coach.

"He is now director of elite performance at the British Olympic Association, apparently far removed from rugby. How strange, then, that his name was on everybody’s lips last week.

"Or is it? The inquest into another ghastly England season, with the frantic straw-clutching of the team hierarchy, raged on. But to me, pure innocent that I am, there were some odd elements to the whole thing. Senior RFU figures admit that the hornets’ nest was stirred last Sunday when Lawrence Dallaglio, writing in The Sunday Times, castigated the lack of vision and effectiveness of Rob Andrew, elite rugby director and in overall charge of the misfiring England side. Dallaglio called for Woodward.

"Conspiracy theorists were then given a fascinating ride. Wednesday was the day of the formal media inquest at Twickenham and Martin Johnson and Andrew duly defended their team, their coaches and themselves. But on the previous day (Tuesday) one paper suggested strongly that senior RFU figures wanted Woodward to replace Andrew."

In his column in The Guardian, Eddie Butler argues that England's players have become shackled by an over-serious quest for world domination and that a little good humour could boost results.

"A sort of war of adjectives has broken out in England. 'Unsubstantiated' is how the manager of England, Martin Johnson, views any criticism of his coaches, with John Wells singled out for particularly stout defence. It seems the charge of 'boring' attaches itself most adhesively to Wells's area of influence, the forwards.

"It doesn't help that Johnson is excellent at glowering and snarling, but is not exactly levity incarnate. And Wells is not exactly, as far as I know, a hot property on the stand-up circuit of Leicestershire, presuming of course that the county does offer a round of humour, chirpy or darker.

"Come to think of it, Steve Borthwick, England's captain for four-fifths of their Six Nations campaign, never had them rolling in the aisles with his post-match interviews: 'Tell you what, Sonya, you'll never guess what happened at the eighth line-out today...'

"You have to go back to the the early 1970s for a chuckle. John Pullen, the Bristol hooker and England captain at the height of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, when Wales refused to travel to Dublin, stood up at the post-match dinner in Dublin: 'We may be crap, but at least we turn up.'"

Writing in The Independent, Brian Ashton talks up the significance of Mike Tindall's recall in relation to England's encouraging display in Paris last weekend.

"While the Six Nations Championship is done and dusted for another year, done to death in some quarters, one certain aspect of the last weekend is well worth noting.

"I have long advocated the importance of individuals contributing to the strength and positivity of a squad and a dressing room, and I consider the return of Mike Tindall to England's midfield to be a classic example.

"Tindall is both an outstanding player and an outstanding individual, whose positive attitude to life and those around him is inspirational. He has the character and personality to transform a team, and the ability to coax the best out of young players with talent and the ambition to play at the highest level. You can rest assured that Ben Foden and Chris Ashton were the better for Tindall's presence in the lashing rain and toweringly tense atmosphere of Stade de France on Saturday night."

Lee Dickson is not shy of the dirty work © Getty Images

Will Greenwood hails Northampton's forgotten man, scrum-half Lee Dickson, following their Anglo-Welsh Cup triumph in The Daily Telegraph.

"Danny Care and Paul Hodgson were the first of his contemporaries to steal a march on him. Then, when their form dipped, Joe Simpson of Wasps scored tries of the season. When he was hit by injury, Ben Youngs played magnificently for Leicester and stole an England bench spot from under Dickson's nose. Better men have crumbled over less, but not Dickson.

"Not once has his enthusiasm on the field or off it diminished, and he has certainly done his best to be noticed. If there is a television camera, then Dickson will be lurking somewhere near it.

"In the lead-up to the England v France game, the television channels looked for the low-down on Chris Ashton, sensing he was about to win his first cap, and the three stooges of Hartley, Foden and Dickson were only too happy to dish the dirt on Ashton's ears, tanning habits, lack of friends and a girlfriend who prefers to watch the Cobblers, the local football team, rather than her man."

Speaking to The Times, Harlequins' new Director of Rugby, Conor O'Shea, says the club need not forget 'bloodgate', they just need to move on from it.

"Conor O’Shea refuses to look back. Almost a year since Harlequins were mired in the “Bloodgate” scandal, the former Ireland full back’s return to his first love, in the role of director of rugby at Twickenham Stoop, is aimed at carrying the club forward.

"He admits that the foundations are in place thanks to the work of Mark Evans, the chief executive, and Dean Richards, his predecessor who resigned last August because of his involvement in the use of fake blood capsules during last April’s Heineken Cup quarter-final defeat by Leinster. Indeed, O’Shea, 39, has spoken to Richards about the job in which he will complete his first fortnight next week.

“You are your history, Bloodgate is part of the history,” he said yesterday as he prepares for his first game, against Bath at the Recreation Ground tomorrow. “That’s a chapter which hasn’t been written in the official club histories yet. There’s no need to expunge it, there is a need to move on. Dean did an enormous amount for this club, he’s an icon, a legend of English rugby. He’s still incredibly passionate about Harlequins, which was even more striking when I met him.”

Toby Flood reflects on a disappointing end to the Six Nations for England in The Independent.

"They are never particularly happy places after a defeat, but the England dressing room at the Stade de France was especially quiet following our final Six Nations match last Saturday. We knew we'd put in a decent performance, but I think a lot of the lads felt it was a match that we could have won.

"While France were worthy champions, we had pushed them all the way and came very close to denying them the Grand Slam. It was certainly good to go out there and throw the ball around a bit. We were determined to cause them problems and to express ourselves. I think the fact that they shut up shop in the second half was a reflection of the respect they had for us. The Parisian weather didn't do us any favours either, with the rain coming at the wrong time for us."

Frank Keating remember's England's most exotic player, Prince Alexander Obolensky in The Guardian

"Red roses for a white Russian. Crimson blooms of English rugby's traditional floral emblem will this weekend begin to be strewn on or around the imposing new statue in Ipswich's Cromwell Square. Last Saturday evening in Paris, romantics could be forgiven for imagining the England rugby team's sudden invigorating try out of the blue and down the left touchline could itself have been an emphatically colourful stroke of remembrance in apt commemoration of the notable imminent jubilee.

"Hail to the Prince. Three-score-and-10. Monday 29 March is the 70th anniversary of the death, at just 24, of (still) England's most exotic, outlandish and, you could say, treasured rugby footballer.

"Prince Alexander Obolensky, son of an officer in Tsar Nicholas's Imperial Horse Guard, was sent to Britain as a toddler to escape the Revolution. At Trent College he made a mark in the Midlands as a schoolboy sprinter. At Brasenose he won the first of his two Oxford Blues in 1935, ever intriguing the gossip columns by the variety and dazzle of society girls on his arm as well as his habit of gaily downing champagne and a dozen oysters before Oxford's matches. On the field, "he glides with the easy sinuosity of an antelope at full speed", wrote leading sportswriter EHD Sewell."

Peter Bills reflects on the changes seen at the end of the Six Nations in terms of pace and running rugby in The Independent.

"In a brasserie just off the main 'Place' in Bastille, the area of Paris where they know a thing or two about revolutions, a very dramatic event occurred last Saturday evening.

"A burly Frenchman was standing beside a television showing the France/England match live, and roaring his support for...... 'Les Rosbifs'. This was revolutionary stuff. He explained this dramatic state of affairs in the following words 'Ze are ze only team playing proper rugby.'

"I thought I'd have to go to heaven before I heard such words fall from the lips of a Frenchman. But it was an indication of how the southern hemisphere induced changes in the law interpretations, especially at the breakdown, began to influence countries by the end of what has been a pretty mediocre Six Nations Championship."

Jonny Wilkinson reviews England's Six Nations campaign and the media reaction to his form in The Times.

"At the end of another Six Nations, I should start by saying that there is nothing that makes me prouder than playing for my country and every time I do so, I go out there to be the best I can for my team and my nation.

"The Six Nations did not go as well as hoped for the team or for me personally, but what is most important to me is that I have stood by my values. I could not have worked harder, thought more or talked more or listened more. I didn’t have a spare bit of energy that was not channelled into preparing for and playing in those games. What happened on the pitch — the product of all that work — is, by definition, where I am and I accept that.

"If we started the Six Nations again, I’d be the same: same workrate, same desire, same player. Of course, with hindsight, there are certain decisions on the pitch that I might have changed and certain events I wish had turned out differently, but, on the whole, what you’d get from me would not change."

Chris Hewett is still struggling to come to terms with England's selection policy in The Independent.

"Eleven Test matches, give or take the odd meaningless warm-up fixture; three Elite Player Squad announcements; one summer tour; one autumn series; one Six Nations Championship. Like shopping days to Christmas, the countdown to a World Cup starts early. Unfortunately for England, the back-room staff have a well-earned reputation for reacting far too late.

"When the manager, Martin Johnson, and his immediate boss, Rob Andrew, sit down tomorrow for a public discussion of the red-rose performance in the Six Nations, they will no doubt trot out their favourite p-word. Progress: as in advancement, betterment, furtherance, headway.

"They will wax lyrical on the subject of Ben Foden, the tap-dancing fullback from Northampton, and his club colleague Chris Ashton, who made his international debut on the wrong wing in Paris last weekend. They will celebrate the emergence of Dan Cole at tight-head prop, predict great things for the brilliant Leicester scrum-half Ben Youngs and present yet another Midlander, the highly athletic Courtney Lawes, as their second-row forward for the modern age."

Simon Barnes finds it hard to get excited about England's loss to France despite their improved performance in The Times.

"England’s enigmatic season came to an end as baffling as its beginning. It was a defeat — England lost to France 12-10 — but not a humiliation.

"An England disaster and we would all have been comfortable calling for the head of Martin Johnson, the team manager, and for that of his boss at the RFU, Rob Andrew. We could ask of Andrew the question the child asked of Mr Asquith: “Mummy, what is that man for?”

"A shocking defeat at least clears the decks for action. It is obvious that something was wrong and that nobody, no matter how accustomed to taking the positives, could escape the conclusion that England’s season was unacceptably poor."

Brian Moore challenges Martin Johnson to build on an improved showing by England against France in The Daily Telegraph.

"Fans, being fans, expected a steadily improving team, challenging strongly in this Six Nations. The utterly execrable nature of some of the play delivered therein and the failure publicly to recognise it as such, means that however seemingly encouraging was their showing against France, many people are wary of being let down again. It is for this reason that they continue to be sceptical about where Johnson is leading his team; hoping he is right but refusing to indulge in another potentially unrequited love affair until they get to see more of the goods.

"Johnson and his players may want supporters to get behind them, but they cannot seriously expect unquestioning adulation when they look at the last eight games as a whole; and by the way – they didn't actually beat France. Moral victories are for people prepared to accept second best.

"Yet it must be acknowledged that England were better than France in many facets of the game and as such the players selected are capable of playing with ball in hand and doing so dexterously. Few teams, including some from the Tri-Nations, have been able to cope with France's slingshot rush defence; yet within 15 minutes of the kick-off England had beaten it twice with good lines and fast hands, scoring a stunning try."

Owen Slot digs up some stats and reviews a sorry state of affairs following the Calcutta Cup anti-climax in The Times.

"Really, it is a sporting miracle that Scotland can match England in the Six Nations Championship. Let alone occasionally beat them. Did you know, Johnnie Beattie said shortly after winning the man-of-the-match award, that there are as many registered referees in England as there are registered players in Scotland?

"I didn’t know, so I went back and checked and found that Beattie had got his information horribly wrong. Probably all those endorphins still rattling through his veins after showing England what a back-row forward can do when he is not only big, but fast and intelligent, too.

"No, Beattie is way out with his stats. There are 38,019 registered referees in England, which actually significantly outnumbers Scottish rugby players. There are only 32,817 registered players in Scotland. Measured head to head, there are 66 times more senior male players in England than there are in Scotland."

Brian Moore is mad as hell and not going to take it anymore following England's slumber-inducing display against Scotland in The Daily Telegraph.

"Can any of the England team, management or players answer the following questions: in which 1976 film did Peter Finch win an Oscar for Best Actor for his portrayal of the news anchor Howard Beale, who threatens to commit suicide on air to increase his show's declining TV ratings, and what was his signature catchphrase that was taken up by disaffected viewers?

"The answers are Network and: "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take this any more."
The England team, both managers and players, are on the verge of creating a legion of fans who shortly will be following Beale's disaffected viewers and yelling something similar at Twickenham.

"Further, their inability to front up and admit there are serious deficiencies to their game in public makes them appear like the film's Best Actress-winning Faye Dunaway, to whom the following description was applied to her character Diana by Max Schumacher (William Holden) – "indifferent to suffering, insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality"."

Mark Reason takes issue with England's back-row following their dour Six Nations draw with Scotland in The Sunday Telegraph.

"England will not have a prayer of winning next year’s World Cup until they sort out their back row. The three-quarters have taken a lot of stick this season, but how are Jonny and Co supposed to score tries when the grease monkeys who are meant to oil the machinery keep wanting to drive the car?

"Scotland’s back row of Johnnie Beattie, Kelly Brown and John Barclay, the aptly named killer Bs, showed England how to play. They run off each other’s shoulders and have fantastic low body positions. It’s all for one and one for all.

"In contrast England’s back row provides so little presence at the breakdown that you have to assume that they are playing to orders. Nick Easter, James Haskell and Joe Worsley all stood away from the contact area and let the front five get on with the dirty work."

Stephen Jones doesn't hold back in his assessment of England following their Calcutta Cup draw with Scotland at Murrayfield in The Sunday Times.

"At the end they couldn’t separate them; they were almost equally bad. England were ludicrously fortunate to finish level with a boisterous Scotland, even though Toby Flood dropped for goal and for some kind of tarnished glory in the dying seconds. It would have been a travesty had he succeeded and a scruffy kick that was easily charged down typified, in terms of execution and spectacle, the match. Tries have become an endangered species. So has flow. So has joy.

"The English self-delusion goes on. Such is England’s lack of attacking intent, confidence and direction, it seemed they were almost petrified to go for the win at the end, sending the ball back to Flood when it begged to be driven on. Apart from a few minutes in the third quarter and a reasonably lively bit at the end, they did not exist as an attacking force.

"Scotland will go to their graves feeling this was a wonderful chance missed. Dan Parks, who was far more successful than Jonny Wilkinson in ushering in something that passed for an attacking game, struck a post twice. England were also fortunate to be awarded the penalty that gave them the draw, and even more fortunate that Mark Cueto was not dismissed to the sin-bin for killing the ball only a few minutes after the inadequate South African referee Marius Jonker had clearly stated that the next England transgressor would be off."

Writing in The Guardian, Barnay Ronay says that England are discovering that having a living legend at the helm will only got you so far at international level.

"England's Six Nations campaign has been a confusing affair, perhaps unsurprisingly given that Martin Johnson has had two years to grapple and grimace his players into what is now an unusually confusing England team. Mainly England are confusing because of the approach they take to not really being that good. Other not-really-that-good teams may ask themselves questions like, can we get some better players? Or improve the ones we've got?

"England take a different view. They worry instead about methodology. They seem convinced the real problem here is simply the manner in which they're not-really-that-good. It's as though this is simply a mild disjunction or a temporary misunderstanding that can be glossed over or jiggled into place. So much so that the England team now resemble a drunk man in a disco who remains convinced that if he could just douse himself in exactly the right strain of deodorant, or dance more energetically, or smoke in a really cool way then the slim, fashionable 21-year‑old women he keeps standing near will suddenly begin to find him attractive."

Mick Cleary runs the rule over the intriguing clash between Andy Robinson's Scotland and Martin Johnson's England this weekend in The Daily Telegraph.

"Just more than three years ago Andy Robinson was sacked by England. On Saturday evening he will stand, narrow-eyed and scowling as is his wont, as Flower of Scotland skirls into life and justifiably wonder if his opponents at Murrayfield are any better now than when he was in charge.

"If Robinson's Scotland side were to win, then the record of Martin Johnson, eight wins in what will be 18 matches by then, is not a whole heap more impressive than that of Robinson, who suffered 13 losses in his 22 matches in charge of England. Mind you, Robinson was unceremoniously moved aside following a miserable run of eight defeats in nine games, a terminal state of affairs in modern sport.

"Robinson has admitted to his own naivety in not fighting political battles. The one-time warrior of the rugby pitch had little stomach for the double-dealing of the committee room. Robinson had stop-start access to players and a schedule over which he had little control. All that has been rectified at a cost of £110 million to the Rugby Football Union. Johnson can pick and choose his men, play them and rest them as he sees fit, much to the chagrin of James Haskell's employer at Stade Français, Max Guazzini."

Brian Moore gets the Celtic view on England's continuing creative problems ahead of the next round of Six Nations action in The Daily Telegraph.

"The assumption that any given Six Nations game is one which England have a good chance of winning relies on results over the past 25 years. At one time this was justified, but if this notion is still entertained by England supporters they are a dwindling set that is badly out of kilter with the view from other countries.

"England fans have sometimes taken too little effort to examine the efficacy of what has and is being done with the advantages of England's greater playing and financial resources; as if these are in some way intrinsically meritorious and taking the attitude: 'sod you; we're still rich'.

"It was therefore instructive to listen, as I did recently, to disinterested views on the recent and current state of English international and club rugby."

The credentials of players and coaches will be at risk as 2006 English champions Sale take on Northampton at Edgeley Park, according to Stuart Barnes in the Sunday Times.

"Have only four years passed since Brian Kennedy saw the realisation of his dreams as Sale’s owner? The club had surged to the top of the English club game with a 45-20 demolition job on England’s sturdiest club, Leicester, in the Premiership final. The northwest had conquered in the southeast and the future seemed Sale’s.

"Now the excitement has been replaced by a sense of inexorable decline with Charlie Hodgson in the midst of the rise and fall, watching giants of the game come and go. Sebastien Chabal symbolised the team’s strength and swashbuckling style. French front-row internationals such as Sebastien Bruno and Lionel Faure were scrum ogres and Jason White was a fearsome presence in the back row. Then there was the best of them all, Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe, unarguably the best back-row forward playing in Britain; all gone.

"So, too, the dynamite that was the thunder-thighs centre Luke McAlister and Scotland strong man Rory Lamont. And, above all, Philippe Saint-André, the director who pulled it all together; he left for the various allures of Toulon and the promise of a budget to compete with the best. He took Lobbe, Sale’s best. Now he has taken Dean Schofield, Sale’s loyalist."

Northampton and former Sale star Argentinian Ignacio Fernandez Lobbe has launched an attack on the Sharks' owner Brian Kennedy and blamed him for the side's decline in fortunes. He talks to Mike Averis in The Guardian.

""We were a great team," said Lobbe. "Why did it change? Why don't you ask the owner. Not for nothing have they lost three captains in the last three years – Jason White, my brother [Juan Martin] and this year Dean Schofield – he is going to Toulon. If you want to keep a team together, you try to keep the captain. It's an example for the other players.

"I don't want to get involved in the politics of the club, but the facts show that the best players go away."

"Lobbe will be back at Edgeley Park tomorrow when Northampton, second in the Premiership but with a game in hand, play Sale who are level on points with Leeds, the side currently standing on the relegation trapdoor. The trouble for Sale is that Leeds, pre-season favourites for the drop, have hit a patch of form and won their last two games, while Sale are having their worst run in a decade."

While Danny Cipriani's voyage of discovery will take him as far as Australia, Olly Barkley's journey of revelation extended no further than Gloucester before he realised that the grass was exactly the same colour. Mick Cleary writes in the Daily Telegraph.

"The Bath midfielder, once every bit the precocious talent that Cipriani is, and with a few scrapes to his name along the way to boot, has returned to his roots with a view to establishing himself and tilting for an England place before the 2011 World Cup.

"Barkley, first picked for England duty as a teenager by Clive Woodward, chose to take himself off to Gloucester two years ago in order to stretch himself in a new environment. It simply didn't work out, and Barkley was honest enough to admit so, returning last summer to his boyhood club. The fatted calf has been on hold for the prodigal son. Barkley broke his leg during a pre-season training in the Algarve in July and only made his belated re-appearance in Bath colours a fortnight ago against Worcester.

"Bath is more than a rugby club to me," Barkley said. "I had no reason to leave Bath other than I wanted to test myself to see if I could be a better player somewhere else. I didn't want to end my career wondering about those sort of things."

Mud and relegation - England's problems? © Getty Images

Robert Kitson believes that England's problems can be traced back in part to the Guinness Premiership relegation battle in The Guardian.

“It has been the same old story for seven consecutive years. How, people keep asking, can a nation with England's enviable resources again be out of the running for a grand slam, if not the title, with two whole Six Nations weekends still remaining?

“Coaches and players come and go but not since 2003 have the erstwhile world champions won three successive games in the championship. To blame the current regime alone is to ignore deep-rooted issues elsewhere.

“Events at Twickenham, for instance, may have less bearing on the England squad's medium-term future than two eye-catching scorelines from the Guinness Premiership at the weekend. Leeds Carnegie's 26-10 win over Wasps, coupled with Gloucester's 47-3 thrashing of Sale, has transformed the Premiership run-in. Suddenly the Sharks, without a win in their last seven games in all competitions, are staring at the unthinkable spectre of automatic relegation. Leeds, conversely, have prised open the theoretically padlocked trap-door. The bitter struggle to avoid the drop to the Championship – with Worcester also involved – will consume all parties for the next two months.”

Brian Moore pinpoints the entire English backline, not just Jonny Wilkinson, as the root of their problems in The Daily Telegraph.

"The Twickenham agnostics (they have lapsed from being faithful into this less slavishly adulatory entity), are metaphorically starting to hum this refrain after Martin Johnson's claim that England's narrow loss to Ireland at Twickenham on Saturday showed "there is still obviously a lot more in us".

"While consistent with similar claims of huge strides being made off the field, the problem is that it is still 'jam tomorrow'. The other difficult fact militating against accepting Johnson's assertion is that it is difficult to see under what circumstances such latent talent will come forth. Having forced Ireland to make four times as many tackles and dominated possession, territory and the set-piece scrums, England are unlikely to be able to have better circumstances from which to challenge the better teams in world rugby.

"Though they had all this ball, all these positions, they were still outscored by three tries to one and their crossing of the line came from good forward play. When they tried to engage their opponents with a more expansive game plan they were taught a lesson in finishing."

John Bentley has dismissed England as 'crap' © Getty Images

David Kelly talks to former England and British & Irish Lions wing John Bentley about Rob Andrew, Martin Johnson and why England are 'crap' in The Irish Independent.

"John Bentley likes the sound of his own voice, which is just as well because so many of those who know him love it too, a Yorkshire accent so thick it almost needs subtitles.

"I hate being called an Englishman, really," says the 41-year-old ex-England winger. "Call me a Yorkshireman instead." If he hadn't been a rugby player, he would liked to have been a porn star. His favourite drink is always the next one. You can guess he's no Coldplay fan.

"An ex-copper from Dewsbury, Bentley debuted against Ireland in the inaugural Millennium Trophy match 22 years ago. Gus Aherne, Vinnie Cunningham, John Sexton and Stevie Smith also debuted for an Irish team on familiar losing duty - 21-13."

Brian Moore recounts all 150 seconds of his refereeing debut in The Daily Telegraph.

"When a player is thrown his shirt it probably doesn't register as anything at all, but my first real problem was what to do about both teams turning up to play in red and white. With neither side wanting to change their traditional strip and bearing in mind something had to be done to make the game start, we ended up with both captains accepting my offer to do the best I could to differentiate but that any cases of mistaken identity would have to be accepted with good grace. In the end, as if by magic, 15 blue shirts were conjured up and this headache went away.

"It is this authority and indeed duty to manage the whole affair that brings a referee both pressure but also pleasure; which of us does not harbour some small leaning towards occasional dictatorship, even if benevolent? This must be the principal attraction for any person who takes to the dark side; as it is known in rugby circles.

"While many might deny this seduction, it has to be so or a referee is not doing his job. OK, they are not here to watch you, but if you don't exert an authority and thereby a significant influence, the game will not function properly and whatever spectacle they might have come to watch will not happen either."

Robert Kitson previews a make-or-break Six Nations weekend for England and Ireland in The Guardian.

"The tipping point of the Six Nations championship is upon us. Ireland and England can still win the title but both can also feel the tug of gravity as they contemplate their prospects for Twickenham this weekend.

"Ahead of today's announcement of his England starting XV, Martin Johnson could certainly have done without the slight injury doubt surrounding his leading marksman Jonny Wilkinson as England seek to maintain their 100% start. Three from three, by whatever means, would represent the first Six Nations hat-trick of red rose wins since 2003. Squeeze past Scotland at Murrayfield and the seemingly impossible would suddenly be 80 minutes away. Never mind the quality, just imagine the scope of the dramatic narrative.

"The alternative, for the losers, will be a campaign marinated in regret. When Jason Robinson, Johnson's former team-mate, called at the weekend for Northampton's twinkle-toed full-back Ben Foden to be given a chance he was merely articulating the nationwide frustration at England's laboured effort against the Azzurri. The "F word", as Johnson calls it, is also prevalent among coaches and players. The managerial preference, however, is to use the foundations laid in Rome as a base for patient development."

David Walsh analyses Danny Care's role in the England squad in The Times.

"Delon Armitage stands apart from the others, momentarily on the outside.

"Nick Easter walks past and jumps into one of the parked Land Rovers, James Haskell has the keys for another, and Danny Care ambles towards a five-litre monster they call No 7. Further back, Steve Thompson watches the traffic and thinks he would rather be in hunting gear, a rifle on his shoulder, a forest in his sights.

"But this England squad get-together in west London is about young men bonding with high-powered vehicles. So Easter zips out of his parking bay, then Haskell and Armitage catches Care’s attention. “Danny, mate,” he says, “I’ve been out twice but each time as a passenger. Now they want me to go out again in the back seat.”

England cannot afford to ditch any player with Danny Cipriani's sort of talent according to Brian Moore in The Daily Telegraph.

"The wrangling over whether he will re-sign for Wasps or go abroad is not endearing him to the hierarchy at High Wycombe but this is all part of the professional era; the club must know what is the bottom line and if they are that concerned a once-and-for-all offer is surely not beyond the experienced businessmen in charge.

"If negotiations are dragging out it is their fault for not being decisive, not his for wanting to keep open his options. In these days of money-based decisions any plea for loyalty is quaint, given that reciprocal loyalty is highly unlikely to be offered should Cipriani not continue to be a quality player.

"No, for all the awkwardness that Cipriani seems to engender, there must be something else that is creating this succession of difficulties. Those close to him have no criticisms to make of his commitment to training or playing, but with the praise for this comes qualification that is personal and often maddeningly non-specific — “of course you have to manage him carefully”, or “he is difficult to handle at times”."

England and Wasps fly-half Danny Cipriani has been told to decide today where his future lies, according to Mark Souster in The Times.

"London Wasps are increasingly frustrated at speculation over the fly half’s possible move to Australia and have made it clear they cannot wait indefinitely for Cipriani to say what he wants to do. “We have to know where we stand because we need to make plans for next season,” a source said.

"David Campese, the former Australia World Cup-winning wing, said last night that it would be a mistake for Cipriani to move Down Under.

"Cipriani is known to want to keep his options open for as long as possible to see if a firm offer is made by Melbourne Rebels or whether a club in France decide to make a bid. Wasps have put a new contract on the table but are offering scarcely better terms than the ones he is already on. The Rebels, the new Super 15 franchise, have had to put their recruitment plans on hold temporarily while they resolve funding and other issues with the Australian Rugby Union."

Is Jonny Wilkinson's time up? © Getty Images

Robert Kitson analyses England's win over Italy and joins the voices questioning Jonny Wilkinson's inclusion in The Guardian.

“Everything is relative. Thank goodness we can all sit around debating how awful England were, rather than await a chilling medical bulletin from a Cardiff hospital. Let us be eternally grateful that the Scotland wing Thom Evans did not, after all, suffer a more serious injury at the Millennium Stadium. Were he still lying motionless in bed with no feeling in his arms and legs, England's shortcomings in Rome would be less than irrelevant.

“Happily the medics say Evans should make a full recovery. Unhappily for Martin Johnson, the Six Nations Championship table may imply a blooming red rose but anyone who watched the 80-minute bore-athon in the Stadio Flaminio knows better. Subtract Welsh generosity and Italian mediocrity from the equation and England could easily still be searching for their first win.

“Maybe it would have done them good to lose to the Azzurri on Sunday, if only to inject more realism into the post-match platitudes. Maybe, behind closed doors this week, tough words will be spoken and even tougher decisions taken. As things stand, though, England risk the steepest of descents. Even if they do emerge from their weekend torpor to see off Ireland and Scotland, they face a total wipeout at the hands of a resurgent France in Paris unless there is a radical change of tactics. Should England finish second in the championship playing like zombies, it will confirm every southern hemisphere doubt about the tournament's overall quality.”

Mick Cleary, writing in The Daily Telegraph, has little praise for England or Italy following their Six Nations meeting in Rome.

"They made five line breaks, all prompted from the rear, and managed to trouble what has been an unyielding Italy defence. 'But why didn't they do that more often?' was the plaintive question on the lips of many at Fiumicino airport yesterday. If England are to prosper, and the game itself is to have casual spectators reaching for the replay, rather than the off, button, then they have to be bold. Mark Cueto, Delon Armitage, Mathew Tait and Riki Flutey all had their moments. But moments they turned out to be: the pulse rate soared only to return quickly to idle.

"Compare that to events at the Millennium Stadium, where there was adventure in the air and a belief that ball-in-hand was not the sign of a death wish. It is possible to retain possession through phases. It is not the mark of a madman to run with the ball. Trust your skills. Back your judgment. Have a crack.

"Admittedly Italy are not easy to play against. They are betraying the sport with their wilful disregard for doing anything but hoofing the ball to the skies. There are plans to increase capacity at the Stadio Flaminio to 44,000, making room for 10,000 more spectators. Masochists this way please. Yet the team spoke yesterday of their pride in getting so close to England. Well, they may be worthy, but they are dull."

Eddie Butler believes that England skipper Steve Borthwick should pipe down following games in The Guardian.

"I can't say I know Sir John Chilcot well enough to know whether he likes his rugby union or not, but I can see him of a Sunday afternoon putting his aside his mountains of testimony from the Iraq Inquiry and taking in a bit of Italy-England by way of light relief. Light, of course, being a relative term.

"There he is, possibly drifting off in the second half, only to be jerked out of his power nap by the sound of Steve Borthwick's post-match interview. Such denial, such a limpet. "Sounds familiar," says Sir John with a sigh, returning to his reams.

"Borthwick is playing well, but he has reached the state as a captain where somebody should leave a revolver on his lap-top of lineout analysis. Given the apparent thickness of his skin, it would take an entire box of slugs to draw blood."

Richard Williams joins the Jonny Wilkinson debate following England's victory over Italy in The Guardian.

"Six out of six against Wales a fortnight ago, three out of six against Italy today. The goal-kicking statistics from a narrow victory over Italy will not please the relentless perfectionist inside Jonny Wilkinson. Far more worrying for England, however, is his contribution in open play.

"Like it or not, and Martin Johnson probably does not, an outside-half defines the way his attack functions. Today Wilkinson conformed to the stereotype by sitting deep and making a great deal of use of his boot, a playmaker only in the most negative sense.

"The uninspiring result had the Roman crowd greeting England's win with jeers. Better had been expected from a side with their experience and reputation. Instead Nick Mallett's limited but wholehearted players left the field as the moral victors, having delighted the home fans in the 33,000 crowd with their efforts to play a brand of rugby that might be recognised as entertainment."

Brian Moore is getting tired of England's brand of management speak in The Daily Telegraph.

"After a bright and purposeful start England gradually became drawn into a static game which kept Italy in touch and had it not been for indiscipline the Italians could well have manufactured a win. If we are to have any more transparent management-speak rubbish post-match then we should do away with the interviews and press conferences altogether because they only produce incredulity, if not downright hostility from the watching public.

"Yes, a win is a win and England remain on course for the unlikeliest of Grand Slams, but, with Ireland at home and France and Scotland away, yesterday's game should have been the one in which England showed the latent ability to cut teams open that we have been assured repeatedly exists – if the conditions are right.

"Irrespective of whether this is factually correct, the claims will never come to fruition without players looking for opportunities and, when in possession, manufacturing them when necessary. Riki Flutey's two incisive runs came from the few times England utilised strike moves or ran from mis-kicked ball."

Simon Barnes, whisper it, questions the continued inclusion of Jonny Wilkinson as England's fly-half in The Times.

"There was a time during this match — really quite a long time — in which it was possible to think the unthinkable. England would be beaten by Italy and Jonny Wilkinson would be to blame. Drop Wilkinson! Is it possible to type these words without causing a malfunction of the laptop or stopping the stars in their courses?

"England made almost absurdly heavy weather of this closely fought match. Near the end they were fending off an enthralling Italian attack with a safety margin of only two points. The whiff of upset was in the air, and so was the triumphal march from Aïda. The shag-haired, bearded, big-bodied Italy forwards were inspiring the crowd and charging forward with a sudden belief that the eternal underdog of the Six Nations Championship was about to bite the snootiest dog of all.

"England finally outlasted Italy to win 17-12. They are unbeaten in the championship, just like France, except not really all that much like France. Wilkinson’s contribution was a nightmare of uncertainty in a team who are plagued with the stuff. Jonny uncertain! You’ll be telling me next that he’s got the yips."

Robert Kitson of The Guardian talks to England scrum-half Danny Care about keeping a lid on expectations.

"If one player sums up English rugby just now it is Danny Care. The talent is there and so is the enthusiasm, as evidenced by his celebratory swallow-dive for a try against Wales last week. The only missing ingredient is consistency at the highest level. Get over that hump and a developing England squad really will be ready to soar.

"For the time being, the team management know they are dealing with a work in progress. On the one hand, the 23-year-old Harlequins scrum-half is deemed sufficiently grown up to pull the tactical strings for his country alongside Jonny Wilkinson.

"On the other, this is a young man whose mother still does his washing, most recently the special-edition centenary shirt he wore at Twickenham last Saturday."

Mick Cleary previews a vital weekend for the England management as their squad prepare to take on Italy at the Stadio Flaminio in The Daily Telegraph.

"On such small margins might Martin Johnson be musing as his England squad shake off their post-victory celebrations to get themselves in the right frame of mind to protect their unblemished record over the Azzurri.

"Johnson's job was never really in jeopardy. Only a calamitous run of results, on the scale of a wipeout in the tournament, could have triggered such a turn of events. There has never been any desire at Twickenham for regime change, no whispers of discontent the like of which precipitated the demise of Ashton and Andy Robinson before him.

"Yet Johnson's reputation as a manager of substance has yet to be forged. Concerns persist and questions are raised. Johnson himself accepts that state of affairs. There is little doubt, though, that Saturday's win was a significant step. Anxiety has been quelled, time has been bought. England cannot afford to slip up at the Stadio Flaminio, and certainly need more vibrancy and polish."

Richard Williams evaluates the link in rugby and other sports between player power and success in The Guardian.

"Every now and then we need to be reminded that sport is about the people who play it, not those who design the way it is played. This may not be the most appropriate thought in the immediate aftermath of the Super Bowl, the pinnacle of a sport that introduced us to coaches with earpieces absorbing information from spotters seated high up in the stands, but it was reassuring to hear that a degree of player power was apparently exercised in the run-up to England's victory over Wales at Twickenham on Saturday.

"It may have been not much more than a healthy and perfectly natural exchange of opinions, slightly exaggerated in the retelling. But it was interesting that, in the days leading up to the match, several England players put their heads above the parapet to observe that something had to change about the way Martin Johnson's team were performing. And although the team's aura of stolidity was not dispelled overnight, at least there was a bit more of a sense that the players were being allowed to express themselves.

"Whatever it was that took place, it seems to work for England. Back in 2003, after a series of turgid victories had taken Clive Woodward's side to the semi-finals of the Rugby World Cup, the senior players – Johnson among them – quietly exerted a greater degree of control as they faced the closing stages of the tournament. Not surprisingly, perhaps, "player power" appears nowhere in the index to the book Woodward subsequently wrote to explain his techniques for getting players to do as they are told."

James Haskell excelled for England © Getty Images

Richard Williams talks Top 14 with James Haskell in the wake of his star turn for England in The Guardian.

"James Haskell is hardly the first young man to go to Paris to find himself, but the city's magic seems to be working as well for him as it has for generations of artists and writers. With a brace of tries that shunted England towards a pressure-relieving victory over Wales, the 24-year-old flanker vindicated his much criticised decision to leave London Wasps and cross the Channel to join Stade Français last summer.

"Needing this win perhaps as much as any in their history, England had their opponents to thank for the errors that will allow Martin Johnson and his squad to spend the next week working in an atmosphere of relative tranquillity. Had Alun Wyn Jones not tripped Dylan Hartley five minutes before the interval or Stephen Jones not thrown an intercepted pass five minutes before full time, the criticisms of recent months would have intensified.

"Haskell's first try, on the stroke of half-time, came with a plunge for the line at the end of several minutes of English siege. The second found the flanker ready to make the final thrust as England swarmed through the tattered Welsh cover. These moments were, he claimed, prime examples of the squad's new spirit."

Brian Moore finds things to applaud and lament in England's opening Six Nations victory in The Daily Telegraph.

"Whether it is a reflection of the general trend towards the immediate or a lack of understanding of the game, the Twickenham crowd is becoming increasingly simplistic, with the mundane cheered as heartily as the good; perhaps it was simply relief that they had something to cheer about in England's victory over Wales at Twickenham.

"Their mood was heartened by the sight of their team running out in something resembling rugby shirts and not something favoured by the ASBO-clans that haunt the nation's shopping malls at the weekends. They also had the promise of pace and creativity in the back line, although the late withdrawal of Riki Flutey put a dent in the manager Martin Johnson's quest to find a settled centre partnership.

"For all the promise of the first 10 minutes, they must have begun resigning themselves to another betrayal of optimism as the game tightened perceptibly with only six points being shared between the sides. In fact, this was a typical Six Nations opening; nervy, imprecise and mistake-ridden and produced a lull in the atmosphere that felt almost preternatural and eerie. There was no lack of effort, but when neither side could make ground the inevitable kick-tennis threatened to take hold and several must have considered reaching for their brandy bottles and revolvers."

Owen Slot gauges the value of an intercept in the wake of England's victory over Wales in The Times.

"The period when England nearly threw away their season may be the one that saves them. In the wake of their 30-17 victory over Wales at Twickenham on Saturday, ambitious Englishmen are thus entitled to ponder the value of a single intercepted pass.

"England head for their second game of the Six Nations Championship, against Italy on Sunday, with confidence and spirits raised. And Rome is a splendid place to be a visitor at any time, let alone when it is a rugby weekend and that is the state of your rugby soul.

"But they travel thus uplifted in large part because of the 75th minute and the game-changing, though otherwise disappointing, Delon Armitage. The England full back’s reading of a pass by Stephen Jones, the Wales No 10, was the moment that saved England. It set in motion a move in which the ball passed through a number of hands and was finally delivered to James Haskell, who completed the score."

Stuart Barnes previews the massive Six Nations showdown between England and Wales in The Times.

"This is rugby tribalism at its very best and very worst. The sheer desire for the one country to put it over the other has always been an aspect of the Welsh attitude to this game, even when they were a class apart in the 1970s.

"For England, it is slightly different. Older minds will remember the ritual humiliations in Cardiff but the domination of Europe under Geoff Cooke and then the world under Clive Woodward changed the focus. Under Woodward in particular, Wales were downgraded as New Zealand, Australia and South Africa became the yardsticks.

"But all that has changed with England’s steady slide back into the ranks of world mediocrity. Suddenly the derby game matters massively after the prospect of winning titles disappeared. England have not won the title since 2003 - that was the Grand Slam winning World Cup team. During that era Wales couldn't get anywhere near the then world champions but over the past five years they have managed two Grand Slams, a dream beyond England’s imagination in recent times."

With Twickenham's centenary upon us, Paul Ackford recounts one of the greatest moments to grace the famous ground in The Daily Telegraph.

"Hodgkinson is the next fall guy as Camberabero blasts past him. The winger’s chip and catch flummoxes Dean Richards and Peter Winterbottom. The next hoof, a big one inside to Philippe Saint-Andre sprinting up the middle of the pitch, removes Will Carling from the equation. Jeremy Guscott is the final victim, catching up with Saint-Andre as the French speedster hurtles to the line, but not quite quickly enough as Twickenham explodes in reverence.

"And I was there. I was involved in that most wonderful of scores, involved in the game which was to herald England’s first Grand Slam in over a decade, removing the acrid taste of the defeat against Scotland in another Grand Slam epic the year before. I saw it all unfold. I was on kick-chase duty, jogging towards the posts to take care of any rebounds. I saw the look in Blanco’s eyes as he made his move, sensed the quickening responses of Blanco’s team-mates, eager to get involved. I felt the gathering momentum as one of the great moments of rugby history was played out.

"Or, rather, that’s the memory I wish to carry. The truth is that Blanco looked up, probably smiled dismissively to himself as he saw some big bloke in a white shirt lumbering towards him, and set about making magic. I never got near him."

Martin Johnson's open selection could lead to problems against a street-wise Wales side, according to Eddie Butler in The Guardian.

"It appears the caution imposed in November by an injury list the length of the Pennines has given way to an invitation to play. Perhaps, however, Martin Johnson does not do invites – this could well be an order to his England team to deliver, starting against Wales.

"Throughout the ages there have never been too many question marks over the amount of possession provided by England packs. Some, notably the ones containing Johnson as a second-row, provided more than others, but this pack looks capable of maintaining a healthy supply.

"It may not be the most elastic in the air – Simon Shaw is more a reinforced girder – and the front row will give away experience against the Lions trio of Gethin Jenkins, Matthew Rees and Adam Jones, but primary possession will not be a problem."

Owen Slot evaluates the role of the 'Leicester mafia' in the England coaching setup in The Times.

"The past week has been particularly big on news for Leicester, and it is not about to stop. This week is an England week and the England management’s roots are deep in Leicester territory. And when England are underperforming, it is natural to look at the root of the problem.

"England and the Leicester connection is an intriguing subplot to the progress of the national team. It is peculiar that the most successful club side over generations should be seen to be anything other than a gift to the national set-up. But the members of the England management detest the subject and they are disgusted by the negative perceptions of the association. They are proud of their roots and loath to discuss them.

"We are just five minutes into an interview with Graham Rowntree, the England scrum coach and a very likeable personality, when he says: “I’ll be frank, if we’re going to spend all morning talking about the Leicester mafia and perceptions of it, I’ll walk away now. I’m sick of hearing about it.”

Peter Bills slams those who believe rugby begins and ends in England following the final round of Heineken Cup action in The Independent.

"For the uninformed, those who deal in fantasy as opposed to reality, where now your iron-clad convictions as to the wondrous attractions of English rugby's Guinness Premiership?

"Where now all those glib responses to those who had the courage and temerity to warn "The King has no clothes"? Where now your blinkered, foolish belief, doubtless fuelled by the propaganda issued from on high at Twickenham, that England's rugby and the English League was the best in the business?

"Bunkum, complete bunkum, the lot of it, as a saga of defeats for English clubs in Europe this past weekend in Heineken Cup action, proves. Oh, if only you had opened your eyes to the real, devalued product before you, not despised and rubbished those who actually look beyond the confines of Kingsholm, The Stoop, Welford Road and the Recreation Ground to assess the game."

Hugh Godwin talks to Lewis Moody about the thorny subject of the England captaincy in The Independent.

"With a large portrait of the Prince Regent adorning the wall above him, Lewis Moody is speaking on the subject of leading England. A legendarily madcap character somewhat taken aback to find himself vested with the hopes of a nation, yet determined to show he is up to the job – and dear old Georgie boy had a notably colourful life, too.

"Mad Dog" Moody will turn 32 this summer, and far from losing his bite he was widely credited last autumn with stand-out performances in an otherwise stop-start series for England. It's the bark which has altered. More recently Moody was mentioned in dispatches by the team manager, Martin Johnson; bracketed with Jonny Wilkinson as providing valuable "leadership" in support of the captain, Steve Borthwick.

"It prompted or emboldened some to say the blond flanker – and not the pathologically undemonstrative Borthwick – should be England's skipper. Here in this London pub, and eyeing a pint of stout which in the distant past of his first tour with the national side in 1998 he would surely have downed in one, Moody rejected the idea."

Brian Moore believes that little has been learned by the England management after a disappointing Heineken Cup campaign for the clubs, in The Daily Telegraph.

"The percentage has remained fairly static since the advent of professionalism and to choose this moment to visit the ills of the current English game on this statistic lacks logic. There may be a case regarding the longer-term development of English rugby but that has to take into account all the previous results, including the winning of a World Cup and reaching another final.

"The fact is that the form shown by both the teams and players in the Guinness Premiership has, at times, not even reached the standard of the Magners League. The inability of either to sustain a coherent pattern of play and produce a consistent run of victories indicates that it is not just in the Heineken Cup that the deficit in performance has been apparent.

"The one bright note for England was the indication given by Northampton’s contingent of prospective young England players that they can make the step from club to international rugby, but their narrow loss to Munster also highlighted that in some crucial respects they are not yet the equal of their Celtic counterparts and that only experience will bridge the gap."

Will Courtney Lawes start England's Six Nations opener with Wales? © Getty Images

Former England lock Paul Ackford believes Martin Johnson should keep the powder dry on Courtney Lawes for the time being, in The Sunday Independent.

"England play Wales in a fortnight and the clamour is growing to start Northampton forward Courtney Lawes in that match. It's more than a media campaign. England manager Martin Johnson and his senior coaches are keen to play him too. Lawes is a fantastic athlete: hard, aggressive, quick, predatory, with all the instincts of a Test stalwart. He is precisely what England require to bring some devil to their sluggish forward effort. But Lawes is 20. His only sniff of Test rugby so far has been a 12-minute appearance off the bench against Australia in the autumn. Is he good to go now?

"I don't think so. Not yet anyway. If Lawes were being introduced as a new member of an impressive, stable England front five, then there would be no problem. It wouldn't matter who England were up against because there is no doubt that Lawes, provided he stays healthy, has a fabulous future ahead of him."

Interest in suspended former Bath prop Matt Stevens is heating up despite the fact he still has to serve a year of his ban for cocaine use. Chris Hewett writes in The Independent.

"Matt Stevens, the lost cornerstone of the England pack, has not yet reached the mid-point of his two-year ban for cocaine abuse, but the competition for his services from next February is gathering intensity by the day. Bath want the naturalised South African to return to the Recreation Ground the moment his suspension is over while Wasps have openly declared an interest in luring him to London, but both could be blind-sided by Saracens, now seen by some of Stevens's closest colleagues as the player's most likely destination."

Stephen Jones predicts doom and gloom for English clubs in Europe this weekend in The Times.

"Approaching the final week of a superb group phase of the Heineken Cup, the omens for England are grim. At present, it is impossible to predict an English victory in the final in Paris at the end of May, as the most competitive and compelling league in any code of rugby in any country has struggled this season to produce an outstanding club contender.

"Leicester, Northampton and London Irish have the best chances, but consider how frail their hopes really are. Leicester have to beat the Ospreys on Saturday by scoring four tries for the bonus point.

"Let's be honest, Leicester have many mighty qualities but they are categorically not an attacking machine and against an Ospreys team that have their own pretensions, it is difficult to see the Tigers scoring a feast of tries."

Peter Bills believes that Steve Borthwick's place as England skipper is under severe threat in The Independent.

"If England really are about to start picking their 15 best players and then selecting their captain, then Steve Borthwick could be in severe trouble. There never has been, nor ever will be, anything wrong with 'Borthers' heart. The man has one big enough for a whole pack of forwards.

"At Bath and now Saracens, he was a player who was as honest as the day is long. Trouble is, Martin Johnson made the crass mistake of confusing honest toil with international class. 'Borthers' has bucket loads of the first commodity, much much less of the latter.

"It has been a mystery to me for years why England sports teams have insisted on selecting a captain first. The end product was that so many teams took the sporting field, whether it be for rugby, cricket or whatever other sport, with an inferior leader."

Could Lewis Moody be the next England captain? © Getty Images

Donald McRae meets Leicester and England flanker Lewis Moody in familiar surroundings as he prepares for vital games in the colours of the Tigers and his country in The Guardian.

"Lewis Moody rubs his cut and bruised face defiantly on another freezing afternoon in Leicester. The brown scab on his right cheek is matched by the yellowing bruise under his left eye and the marks on his forehead, but Moody looks cheerfully concentrated. Even speculative suggestions that his exuberant form in the autumn internationals could result in his appointment as England captain for next month's Six Nations can be safely ignored. He is currently England's best player, by a distance, but Moody's mind is locked on his starkly familiar surroundings.

"This weekend his beloved Leicester Tigers travel to Ospreys as leaders of the toughest group in the Heineken Cup – knowing that one more grinding victory in their final qualifying match will guarantee a quarter-final place in Europe's supreme club competition. Leicester also head the Premiership, after their rise to the top of the table was confirmed by a recent resounding win over their perennial rivals, Wasps, in a match which resulted in Moody's latest battle wounds.

"It's not pretty or glamorous," he says intently, talking less about his battered face than the training ground at Oadby as his gaze sweeps across the muddied field and back to the brick laundry room where we've been huddling against the cold. "I've spent the last 14 years here and I still absolutely love it. It's given me some incredible memories."

Paul Ackford ponders the fate of England's young players as the Six Nations approaches in The Sunday Telegraph.

“What makes me think we can win this Six Nations?” Johnson pondered. “We’ve probably assembled the best squad we’ve had since I’ve been involved. It’s going to be exciting getting those guys together. They can move it on pretty quickly from where we were in the autumn. There are things we need to chae, things we need to improve, but there is no reason why we can’t win any particular game we play.”

“Apart from serious reservations over a lack of clout at loosehead, concerns over the balance in the second row and worries over whether the absence of a kicking inside-centre will make England easier to read, Johnson’s picks were well received. Some of the dead wood — Ben Kay, Mike Tindall, George Chuter — had been lopped off, and there is a growing sense that, if he chooses, Johnson’s England could boast youth, pace and sheer vibrancy.

“If he chooses... because Johnson’s been here before with Danny Cipriani, Mathew Tait, Courtney Lawes, Ben Foden and Shane Geraghty, players who were available in the autumn, and earlier, under Johnson’s stewardship, but who were either not used (Foden), hardly used (Lawes and Tait) or jettisoned, having been marked down as useless (Geraghty and Cipriani). Nineteen months and 14 games into the job, how will Johnson decide if and when his young guns are ready?”

Stephen Jones takes a look at England's latest forward hope, Northampton powerhouse Courtney Lawes, in The Sunday Times.

"Earlier this season, Northampton beat Munster in a volcanic Heineken Cup match at Franklin’s Gardens. Courtney Lawes, the giant 20-year-old Northampton forward, played a staggering game. Some time after the final whistle, one of the Northampton backroom staff tapped me on the shoulder.

“Don’t build Courtney up too much,” he asked. “We’re trying to keep him under wraps a bit.” I pointed out that the giant Lawes, 6ft 8in and 17.5st, had just won the man of the match award in front of a live television audience, making his usual power bursts and hits and elastic lineout takes. And since he had left the field to an uproarious standing ovation from a packed stadium, and that during the post-match interviews, none other than Munster’s Paul O’Connell, the Lions captain, had delivered a glowing tribute to the athletic excellence and competitive fire of the tyro, the news was already out.

"Last week, Lawes was named in the England squad for the 2010 Six Nations. He has one cap, as a replacement against Argentina. Today, he plays on the blindside flank — the other key string to his bow — for Northampton against Perpignan, a vital Heineken Cup pool game. He will not be representing the exotic contingent in the club's squad, but rather, the local Northampton Old Scouts club and this most fervent of rugby towns itself. He is a local hero."

Twickenham Stadium is 100 years old today - here's to many happy returns © Getty Images

Rugby's most iconic stadium has reached a landmark as 100 years ago today it staged its first international match. David Hands celebrates this fact in The Times.

"Not everyone knew the way to the ground bought by the RFU two years earlier for £5,572 12s 6d and known thereafter as Billy Williams’s cabbage patch after the committee man who recommended the site.

"Not everyone approved of it, either. There were many complaints about Twickenham: that it lay too close to water meadows, that it was too far from the centre of London and too far from the nearest railway station. Yet the French came to refer to it as the cathedral of rugby, its iconic status is recognised worldwide and it is now a multimillion-pound business, incorporating an hotel and a health centre."

On a more serious note, former England hooker Brian Moore speaks candidly about how he still suffers self-esteem problems after being sexually abused as a child, and about the reactions prompted by his startling biography in an interview with Brian Viner in The Independent.

Moore did not disclose his abuser's name in the book, but the Daily Mail has since discovered the man's identity. Coincidentally it was yet another Brian, Brian Wright, a bachelor friend of his parents, who died aged 83 two years ago. He has not yet spoken to others abused by Wright at Whitehill Junior School. "But I've got messages to call a couple of people from my schooldays, which won't be easy. I've also had 20 letters from people who suffered in the same way, including two fairly well-known players I played against. Like me, they all kept it to themselves, in one case for 57 years."

"In plenty if not all of these cases, and certainly in Moore's, the abuse, and the determination to keep it a secret, led to enduringly low self-esteem. He actually has a name, an identity, for this low self-esteem: he calls it Gollum, after the hobbit with the split-personality in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Not even his unequivocal success in the sporting arena – a World Cup final, three Grand Slams and 64 caps – suppressed this demon. Moreover, he reasons that the fierce competitiveness that served him so well on the rugby field has blighted him in other areas. There is a very perceptive sentence in his book – "the refusal to relent is rewarded in sport and sometimes in business, but it is destructive in relationships" – and he has two divorces [his current wife, Belinda, is the third Mrs Moore] to prove it."

Former England hooker Brian Moore talks abusing referees, why Labour don't deserve to win the general election and running a Blade Runner marathon with Paris Hilton in The Guardian's latest edition of Small Talk.

"You sometimes clash with Small Talk's (very distant) colleague Eddie Butler in the commentary box. Ever tempted to slap his face with your glove and get duelling? Ha! No, I get on very well with Eddie and only disagree with him when he's wrong … [skips a comic beat] which is all the time.

"Does your scrappiness come from your time as a lawyer? Undoubtedly. But I always like to see both sides of the story. I'm taking a referees course so when I criticise them I can back up what I'm saying."

Chris Ashton has been called up by England © Getty Images

Eddie Butler finds little hint of a revolution in Martin Johnson's latest England squad in The Guardian.

"What did you expect? Revolution? You only had to see the names of the props – Julian White, Andrew Sheridan, Tim Payne and David Wilson – to know that the big fingers of Martin Johnson had taken the burning fuse and snuffed out the fire. Dan Cole and Matt Mullan will have to go down the road of Saxon convention before being thrust into the full England team.

"Or at least they'll have to wait until the end of the month when, among others, Sheridan will have his injury reassessed. So, while the young Cole has to wait, the prop he inconvenienced at Welford Road at the weekend, Tim Payne of Wasps, retains his place in the elite squad. It all depends on how you interpret current form, I suppose.

"At scrum-half Harry Ellis survives an inconvenience of his own – of hardly having played this season – to see off the challenge for the moment of Ben Youngs, who, along with Cole, has done so much to make Leicester the force of the hour. Current form can take many shapes, like good posture, in Ellis's case, on the physio's bench."

The Times' David Hands visits Leicester to talk to Ben Youngs and his brother Tom who are following in the footsteps of their international scrum-half father Nick.

"The Youngs brothers from Leicester, you might think, are open to suggestion. Tom, the older, is in the process of making that most rare of transitions, from centre threequarter to hooker; Ben, 32 months younger, was a teenage rebel against the thought of playing scrum half because he wanted more space to run the ball out wide, but now he rather likes it.

"So much so, in fact, that some critics make him a contender to be named in England’s elite squad tomorrow, while Richard Cockerill, the Leicester head coach and a former England hooker, believes that Tom, who will turn 23 this month, could play senior club rugby in his new position and has the attitude to go even higher. It is all enough to make a father’s head spin, particularly when that parent played for Leicester and England — at scrum half."

Is it Ben Foden's time? © Getty Images

Paul Rees, writing in The Guardian, believes that Martin Johnson must allow his side to utilise their creativity in the upcoming Six Nations.

"To see or not to see, that is the question ahead of Wednesday's announcement of England's revised elite-player squad for the Six Nations championship. Martin Johnson and his selectors went for experience when the original 32 was announced last July, but the sterility of England's autumn international campaign, allowing for a plague of injuries, amounted to an indictment of short-termism.

"When Johnson took over as team manager in the summer of 2008 he invested in youth, only to think again after Australia, New Zealand and South Africa stormed Twickenham. The majority of the forwards named in last July's elite squad are in their 30s, some veterans of campaigns fought with Johnson the player. How many, though, will be fit for battle in next year's World Cup?

"Johnson started with the best of intentions but soon fell victim to the pressure that constricted his two immediate predecessors. Even though he was armed with a contract that ran until the end of the World Cup, he reacted after coming under fire in November 2008 by abandoning long-term planning and concentrating simply on the next match."

Forme England hooker Brian Moore gestures to the Cardiff Arms Park crowd during his side's Five Nations Championship victory over Wales © Getty Images

England’s finest hooker took years to tackle his toughest opponent - the one inside his head called Gollum, Paul Kimmage writes in the Sunday Times.

"If you’ve watched Brian Moore play rugby, or listened to his commentaries on TV or read his newspaper columns, it’s the passion and obduracy that marks. This was a sporting icon, the Pitbull of England’s scrum, and it paid to beware of the dog. This is a classic Yorkshireman, immortalised by Harry Enfield, who says what he likes and likes what he bloody well says. So it comes as something of a shock to find him so shaken and vulnerable.

"We meet on a Tuesday morning at his Wimbledon home. Three days have passed since the revelations that he was sexually abused as a boy made headlines and he hasn’t quite come to terms with it. His mind is racing and skipping on every thought; his arms itch with clumps of weeping psoriasis; his sinuses are clogged and there’s gravel in his throat. He sits at the kitchen table, aching for a Marlboro Light, sifting through the pieces of a large jigsaw puzzle. It seems a perfect metaphor for his life.

“Is that a passion?” I ask. “No, someone gave it to me and over the last few days I’ve just ... I don’t know. It’s been odd and quite difficult really. I’m still a bit numb about the whole thing. I knew the serialisation was going to be in the paper but when it was on the front page it made me feel sick actually. I thought, ‘Oh God! Have I done the right thing?’ I didn’t read any of it for a few hours and my wife said, ‘Look, it’s not as bad as you think it is’. And so I had to make myself do it and once I had done it, it was out of the way.”

David Flatman loves the rickety Rec but time has come to move on - read his thoughts on Bath's future stadium plan in the Independent on Sunday.

"There is great affection felt for The Rec both locally and, I believe, from the wider rugby community. Employee's bias aside, I can never remember having played anywhere so beautifully situated and to get to do so every other week is a genuine treat. Sure, it's a rickety old joint with uncomfortable seats and truly awful parking arrangements but it is also a proper old rugby ground. It might lack the seating capacity or baby-changing facilities of a Liberty Stadium, it might not be able to cope so well with a bit of rain or snow, but I know where I would rather run out.

"I practically have to sit on Danny Grewcock's lap to get changed for a match and the "team" bath is so small that Duncan Bell and I cannot both bathe at the same time (this is an easier cross to bear). Strangely though, I never hear anyone complaining. We are more likely to endure with a smile the limp, rarely warm showers, dump our kit bags in the car and wander into town for a drink. Not such a bad existence."

Brendan Venter is right – cheats prosper because referees stopped all contact between boot and body, according to the Sunday Times' Stephen Jones.

"Can rugby afford not to bring back boots on bodies? The pain might be the only way to save the game.

"Some readers may be unable to believe that the ruck was once the most dynamic part of the game, the most urgent, the fount of all quick ball. Brendan Venter’s courageous outburst on the state of rugby and refereeing last weekend had several targets but at the heart of his argument was the death of the ruck and the rude health of static, crabbing, infringing play. And here is an incredible thing. At ruck-time after the tackle, players are supposed to get back to their feet immediately or else roll well away. So why, in the Saracens v Leicester game last Saturday and in every game you see nowadays, are there at least six beached whales lying around the contact area? Unpenalised.

"The classic ruck was a surge over the ball and over the prone players, leaving the ball lying there, begging to be used. But referees have been told to penalise unmercifully any rucker whose boots make contact with the prone players. If there are six prone players, there is nowhere safe for the ruckers to put their feet, so they have to stand lamely and emasculated, and find other illegal ways to win the ball. A further disaster has been the dispensation this season that allows the first defender at a ruck to keep his hands on the ball — creating an even bigger pile-up. As Venter says, the death of the ruck has seen the birth of blatant cheating."

Before Martin Johnson names his Six Nations squad on Wednesday, The Guardian's Rob Kitson picks five young men he might consider.

"Chris Ashton - One of England's more urgent Six Nations priorities is to boost their try count – in three autumn Tests they scored one. For that reason alone the 22-year-old Northampton wing has to be a genuine contender. He is the Premiership's leading try‑scorer this season with nine and has scored 67 in 62 games since moving to union from his native Wigan, for whom he scored 30 tries in 52 games. Jim Mallinder, Saints' director of rugby, reckons Ashton has developed substantially this season and rejects the notion that the ex-league winger's defence might be exposed at the highest level. "This year we're seeing him become a really good all‑round rugby union player. Physically he can handle himself and he's now got a good defensive understanding. His kicking game has also improved massively."

Northampton back Shane Geraghty intends to bounce back from a difficult autumn, when he was dropped after two outings for England. John Westerby writes in The Times.

"Like many an outing in the snow this week, Northampton’s attempt to hold a serious training session on AstroTurf soon degenerated into a snowball fight. Shane Geraghty grins from ear to ear as he recounts how the players rounded on Nick Johnston, the club’s head of conditioning, and sought retribution for all the physical punishment he has inflicted upon them in the name of fitness, a case of revenge served particularly cold. It is good to see Geraghty smiling again, an image in stark contrast to the disconsolate figure that he cut with England during the autumn.

"Given the chance to establish himself at inside centre, his creative spark fizzled out after insipid games against Australia and Argentina, his frustrated attempts at playmaking epitomising England’s tongue-tied efforts to express themselves. He was dropped for the final match, against New Zealand, the coaches preferring the more prosaic skills of Ayoola Erinle, and, although Geraghty came off the bench to some effect, he finished the autumn a fallen man."

Simon Shaw will be key © Getty Images

Stuart Barnes believes that defeat at Leicester could be a fatal blow to Wasps' Guinness Premiership hopes in The Times.

"Last week I didn’t know where to start – Saracens versus Leicester had an immense appeal, while second met third as London Irish travelled to the East Midlands and a fractious meeting with the decidedly feisty Northampton Saints. Further north, in terms of geography but as south as the table goes, Leeds laboured against eleventh placed Bath. It was a matter of take your pick - not this weekend.

"All roads lead to Leicester – they did even before a half of the six matches were postponed due to the weather – where Wasps search for an away win which would have been a bonus had they beaten Newcastle as expected last Sunday.

"As it was, their loss and Leicester’s valuable away win at Saracens leaves their bid for a top four spot looking as precarious as their scrum was against Carl Hayman and his North Eastern raiders. Wasps’ industrious and efficient beginning to the season (a rarity in even the great Wasps team of recent years) is beginning to unravel."

Wasps coach Shaun Edwards hopes that the finer points of Brendan Venter's referee rant will not be lost amid the controversy in The Guardian.

"This is a tricky one. Brendan Venter is in the dock and while the charge sounds straightforward enough – conduct prejudicial to the interests of the game – the issues involved go far wider.

"For anyone not up to pace, this is the situation: last weekend Venter, the Saracens director of rugby, followed defeat by Leicester with a 40-minute explanation of why he thought English referees in general, and David Rose, the official at Vicarage Road on Saturday, in particular, had got it wrong. During that time, and in a BBC interview, he also appears to have wondered aloud about whether Mr Rose had been spoken to – "got at" – at half-time, something which Saracens deny and say they will fight.

"Venter also recounted private conversations he had had at other times with referees and/or their bosses at Twickenham.The charge laid down by the Rugby Football Union mentions only that the coach had "criticised or implied criticism by publicly questioning the integrity of the match referee", but I'd like to broaden the issue in an attempt to explain the current relationship between clubs and referees plus some other points Venter made that might otherwise get lost in legal arguments."

Should there be yet more law changes? © Getty Images

Eddie Butler is happy with rugby's 'smallish lot' as calls for expansion continue in the wake of Brendan Venter's latest attack on the laws in The Guardian.

"With the solemnity of a vicar who has just found out his daughter is a porn star, the Rugby Football Union have levelled charges against Brendan Venter. The coach of Saracens had said that David Rose's second-half refereeing performance in the game against Leicester did not have much in common with his first.

"These are not matters to take lightly, but Richard Cockerill, the coach of Leicester fresh back on matchday duty after serving a ban for roundly abusing a match official, mush have had a chuckle. And double-checked that he had kept his lips sealed on the day in question.

"Rugby union is a wonderfully complicated game, which answers the question posed by Robert Kitson about the future size of the sport. Can it ever challenge football? No, it's too difficult to work out what's going on.

"There's nothing wrong with that, but complexity shrinks its global appeal. And if, in the name of expansion and simplicity, you start tampering with the laws, then you'll create something that isn't rugby union."

Stephen Jones praises the forthright words of Saracens boss Brendan Venter in The Times.

"Brendan Venter, the Saracens coach, had the air of a man on a mission as he took his seat in the media room at Vicarage Road last Saturday evening. His breathtaking 40-minute assault on the mess of the laws at the breakdown, the random interpretations, the frustrations, the lack of incentive for teams to attack - all of it was perfectly judged.

"Frankly, I cannot bring myself to condemn him because his verbals were not contained in some hoary procedure laid down by the Rugby Football Union. Why should such matters be contained behind closed doors when they affect so many tens of thousands of people who form the paying and watching public? Are we supposed to banish from the debate the 14,000 people who went to watch the Saracens-Leicester match and witnessed such sporting poverty?

"But as the debate rages on, let's just take aim at one of Venter's targets. Never mind about demanding that coaches shut up. What about demanding that referees shut up too? Venter savaged the fact that every player killing the play at the breakdown gets too many chances."

Peter Bills believes Brendan Venter had an ulterior motive for his rant about official David Rose in The Independent

"Venter is under serious pressure in a big pressure job. But he is no fool, prone to emotional explosions. Rather, he is a cool, calculating figure who plans most things down to a tee. Thus, his outburst after Saracens' second successive defeat should be regarded in that light. To me, it didn't add up, other factors were involved.

"I believe Venter's criticisms were a smokescreen. Sure, referees can always be a source of frustration. But that is nothing new. They make some bizarre decisions but Venter has been in the game long enough to know that. Nor are English officials any worse or better than their counterparts in countries all around the world. Look at the paucity of top referees in Australia at the moment.

"Referees do their best, and very often they slip below the standards you would expect in a professional game. But what's new about that? It didn't need Venter's outburst to tell us that.
So I'm not convinced all this was any spur of the moment outburst from Venter. To me, he's too clever to fall into that sort of pit unknowingly. I suggest there was another reason for his rant."

Was Brendan Venter right to speak out? Mick Cleary mulls over the question of the moment in The Daily Telegraph.

"Venter's scattergun outburst threatens to conceal an important truth and deflect attention from the most pressing issue facing the game: what to do about the breakdown. In fact, it is high time to redefine terms and to stop referring to the breakdown at all. The term does not exist in the laws of the game. Rather we should be talking about the ruck and the maul, and what happens, or should happen, there.

"Many have long advocated that boots on bodies should be allowed at the ruck. Brian Moore again argued the point in these pages on Monday. If there were more speed, potency and dynamism in that phase of the game, then the frustrations felt by so many directors of rugby would reduce.

"The game has become stodgy, fractured and mind-numbingly tedious. Caution stalks the pitch. Attack has become defunct as players and coaches have become paralysed by fear and uncertainty. Once a man is tackled, the next phase of play is no more predictable than a random spin of the roulette wheel. That was the nub of Venter's critique. These views need to be aired, and aired forcibly."

	Saracens boss Brendan Venter © Getty Images

"Brendan Venter's venting of his wrath on referees will no doubt earn the Saracens director of rugby a fine and a dressing down from Twickenham, but when someone is punished, or forced to apologise, for telling the truth, a sport puts itself on the sick list.

"In the wake of his side's defeat by Leicester Venter blamed refereeing, particularly at the breakdown, for the risk-free rugby that has become the Premiership's staple fare. "Everyone wants to know why the game is dying," he said. "I am not accusing referees of being dishonest but the confusion is almost total and it seems pointless to prepare teams," he added, claiming the problem was worse in England than elsewhere.

"He had clearly not watched the Magners League Welsh derby between Ospreys and Cardiff Blues the day before, a study in bewilderment, but more is the pity that he did not make his remarks after his side had won – the September meeting with Gloucester, for instance, after the Vicarage Road crowd had expressed its disgust at a glut of tedious kicking out of hand on a sunny afternoon."

Simon Barnes has lost patience with rugby, power-crazed referees and preventative refereeing in The Times.

"A new year, and soon enough rugby union will swing into prominence as the Six Nations Championship begins. Now place your hand on your heart and tell me: do you understand the laws of this bloody game? When the referee blows for an infringement, do you know what he is blowing for before you are told?

"This is not a question that divides serious rugby buffs from the rest. Nor is it a question that divides rugby professionals from the rest. It is not one that divides the players on the field from the rest, or even the player doing the infringing from the rest. It is a question that separates the referee from every other individual on the planet.

"What happens in rugby? A player takes the ball, moves forward a little and gets tackled. A whole load of players then roll about on the ground. Pheep! The referee gives a penalty. It is a judgment that appears to have very little relevance to what is happening. I used to think this was just me and my silly ignorance. But it’s not. It’s a fundamental problem with the game."

Eddie Butler is looking to England for answers in the seemingly endless debate on the state of the game in The Observer.

”At the start of the decade that has just ended, England were the worry. And so it is that rugby, as played in and by England, sets the agenda for the new age. Wales have had their two Grand Slams in the noughties and Ireland are the force of the moment, but where we go from here depends on England.

“Ten years ago, the question was posed - with barely disguised mockery - of Clive Woodward: 'Can you ever win the Grand Slam?' Wales, Scotland and Ireland, at various stages of the Six Nations a