Getting your whingeing in early!

I have heard it all now.

The Australians have turned their back on their history and switched to complaining about English roughhouse tactics before the match has even started. Now I must have been watching a different competition to these sensitive souls in the Aussie pack, but I have not seen anything approaching violent play from the English in this tournament.

Indeed, some of us would have been grateful for just a hint of that against the South Africans. So what is behind the convicts' whining?

I think we all know. They are genuinely worried in case the English 8 do a number on them like they did 2 years ago at Twickenham. They hope that if they start complaining early, that when push comes to bloody great shove in the match and the scrum collapses, they can shout about "dark tactics" and hide behind the ref's skirts.

Much as I would really love to see the game pan out this way, I think the Wobblies are worrying unnecessarily. I agree with them that the Blessed Brian has picked a pack to do a certain job, its just that I think the target will have moved on before our boys get there, puffing and blowing from the last breakdown.

The problem is our back row is too slow to stop Gorgeous George Smith. He will have swooped and dug out the ball before Cozza and Easter are 5 metres from the contact area. We needed Rees and Moody working in tandem to have a chance. Of course Rees was bullied off the ball against the Boks, he was the only one there!

Also, if we wanted our strongest scrum out to press the Golden Girls, why have we taken Stevens off? Even those outside the front row can see he is a better scrummager than Vickery. Much as I hate to say it, we looked doomed.

No doubt the Wobbly scrum will creak and collapse repeatedly, and as usual, the ref will let them get away with it and find spurious reasons for penalising England (remember the last RWC final?). So don't expect too much tomorrow. God it would be great, but just how much possession do we need to secure to outscore Mortlock and his mates. More than 75%?