'Jonny came through unscathed and that's a massive plus'
England 22-55 South Africa
Okay, so it was another drubbing on paper but a better performance and there were some positives to take out of that game. South Africa came out of the blocks pretty fast again, especially in the second half and that early barrage killed us after we'd fought so well to get ahead.
I thought we matched them physically pretty well and the forwards were excellent defensively. It was pleasing to see because it was an area we struggled with in the first Test. This week I thought we were a lot better and Nick Easter and Magnus Lund put in some massive hits. I thought Nick Easter in particular had an awesome game. Having said that, some of our defensive tackling in the backs let us down, particularly with the Percy Montgomery and Spies tries. You just can't let a team like South Africa break through like that and miss so many tackles. I thought the guys for 40-50 minutes played really well but an international game is 80 minutes long.
"You can't miss tackles"
Offensively, I don't think we really showed enough from an attacking perspective. I would have liked to see Percy Montgomery peppered a little more under the high ball and to have seen us work their weaknesses a little more rather than try and run through them every time. Jonny and Floody played okay again but the quality of ball they received was pretty limited. The good thing is that they came through the two Tests unscathed and that's a massive plus for England.
As far as I'm concerned, my fitness is now fine and I'll have to see how the body reacts when I start playing again. But as we've seen over the past couple of weeks, it's easy to pick up knocks and injuries in this game! I'm happy that I've had some columnists in the press saying that England and Jonny could benefit from my experience at inside centre. I'm glad people are waking up to the fact that Jonny and I compliment each other very well. If you've got good players around you and get the right type of ball, then anything's possible. At the moment, Wilko probably thinks he has to do everything himself rather than distributing the workload to people in various parts of the pitch. But Jonny did great in South Africa and for him to captain as well after being out injured for so long was great for him.
Will South Africa have the psychological advantage going into Paris? On the basis of what's just happened, you'd have to say yes but I'm not so sure. If a depleted side that really haven't trained together can hold them for 50 minutes, we'd like to think that with a fully fit England side that's had time together, Paris will be a completely different thing. The Tri-Nations will be a huge test for South Africa and then we'll know how good they really are.
On current form, you'd have to say New Zealand are the side to beat but they did beat a second string French outfit with 10 new caps.
The England 40-man World Cup squad is named on Wednesday and I'd like to think Brian will pick his full strength sides for the warm-up games against Wales and France. We need to spend as much time on the pitch together to get our organisation right. I hope Brian will pick his first team for at least two of the three of those games. We're going to be rusty but depending on how the training camps go and the build-up to the games, we've got the players to win all three warm-up matches, especially if we have a couple of months together as a group of players. It really has been our biggest problem and couple of months in international rugby is a long time.
Listen to Mike talk about England’s World Cup preparations
A lot of people are calling for the return of Lawrence Dallaglio and he will always be knocking on the door. But there's a lot of competition for places. I thought Nick Easter was outstanding in South Africa, Martin Corry's had a fantastic season and James Haskell played brilliantly for the Saxons against the New Zealand Maoris. I watched the Saxons beat the Maoris and it was good to see Paul Sackey, Danny Cipriani, Olly Barkley, Dowson and Tom Voyce play well and give themselves a chance and it's a great stepping-stone for the next level. So there are a lot of options, should Brian want to experiment in those warm-up games.
" I'd seriously love to captain the side "
There's been some talk about who will captain the side and, of course, I'd really love to do it. But if Brian thinks Phil Vickery or Jason or Jonny should be captain and that's best for the team, then great. But, of course, I'd seriously love the job.
Listen to Mike talk about the England captaincy
It's exciting times for us because we're the underdogs and people have written us off. The pressure's off us now so we can just go out and play and show everyone how good this England side really can be.
Mike Catt.
4th June 2007
