England's new head coach, Brian Ashton, has had his preparations for the Six Nations disrupted by injury. Barely 24 hours into his first squad session Ashton was forced to send all three of his specialist wingers back to their clubs yesterday. There are also doubts over five key forwards before Scotland's visit to Twickenham on Saturday week.
With Paul Sackey already resigned to missing England's opening two games, it looks increasingly likely that Mark Cueto and Jason Robinson will also be unavailable for the opening weekend of the championship. Sackey has a knee problem and Cueto and Robinson have calf and neck injuries respectively which will rule them out of Sale's game with Gloucester this Saturday.
Last weekend's Heineken Cup games have also taken their toll up front with the new England captain, Phil Vickery, the Leicester pair of Julian White and Louis Deacon and the Sale flanker Magnus Lund all sitting out training yesterday with assorted aches and pains. If Vickery's ankle and White's knee fail to respond to treatment, Ashton will have a giant-sized hole to fill on the tight-head side of the front row and the Northampton hooker Steve Thompson was also unable to do any contact work at a chilly Twickenham.
Ashton is not yet calling for reinforcements from the Saxons squad which suggests the medical staff are merely taking sensible precautions. But, barring a rapid improvement in Robinson's fitness, there is little cover in the back three if the Sale skipper, who had been in line to start on the left wing, fails to recover.
Iain Balshaw and Josh Lewsey are the only other specialist full-backs/wingers in Ashton's squad which may suggest a recall for Ben Cohen or James Simpson-Daniel. The Harlequins pair of David Strettle and Mike Brown, Gloucester's Olly Morgan or Bath's Olly Barkley are also possibilities but it seems Ashton really could utilise Mathew Tait at full-back.
Tait featured at No15 for Newcastle last weekend and, protected by a potential centre pairing of Andy Farrell and Mike Tindall, would relish the extra attacking space. While the experiment of shifting him from outside-centre to the wing on England's tour of Australia last summer was not a success, he has too much talent to be left languishing in the shadows.
Scotland have their own injuries. Jason White, Allister Hogg, Mike Blair, Simon Webster, Nathan Hines and Chris Cusiter could all miss the England game.
Italy squad (v France in Rome) Forwards M Bortolami (Gloucester), M Castrogiovanni (Leicester), S Dellape (Biarritz), C Festuccia (Parma), Mauro Bergamasco (Stade Français), S Parisse (Stade Français), S Perugini (Toulouse), V Bernabo (Calvisano), M Zaffiri (Calvisano), A Zanni (Calvisano), F Ongaro (Saracens), A Lo Cicero (L'Aquila), J Sole (Viadana), C Nieto (Gloucester). Backs G Canale (Clermont-Auvergne), A Scanavacca (Calvisano), P Griffen (Calvisano), Mirco Bergamasco (Stade Français), R Pez (Bayonne), K Robertson (Viadana), A Masi (Biarritz), D Dallan (Stade Français), R De Marigny (Calvisano), A Troncon (Clermont-Auvergne).
