Jonny Wilkinson will be fit to travel with England to Australia today but there is a doubt over the participation of the Newcastle prop Jon Golding, the victim of an untimely injury setback here yesterday. While two scans have revealed no serious damage to Wilkinson's sore ribs, Golding will be assessed by England's medical team this morning after suffering a similar problem against the Barbarians.
Given that Golding had a decent debut in an England jersey yesterday, it would be a shame if the loosehead were forced to withdraw from his first senior tour. Wilkinson's state of fitness, though, is a rather bigger deal from an Australian perspective and Toulon's head coach Philippe Saint-André, in charge of the Barbarians, confirmed his fly-half would be on one of the two aircraft ferrying England's 44-strong tour squad to Perth. "He needs one week more for rehab but he'll be fine for the Tests," said Saint-André.
England's head coach, Martin Johnson, also indicated that Charlie Hodgson would be fit to travel despite a bang in the face which ended his game prematurely. Hodgson's departure coincided with the home side's loss of impetus and Johnson admitted last night that the second half had been "a bit ragged".
"I thought we did some very good things in the first half and cut them open a number of times," said Johnson. "We said at half-time that we needed to be direct and not get involved in a loose game but they upped the tempo and we got reffed more tightly than they did.
"It was a little bit disruptive losing Charlie when we did, though Olly [Barkley] did pretty well in the circumstances. We probably threw a few balls we shouldn't have thrown but overall it was a worthwhile exercise.
"In the second half we lost our way and got penalised a lot and we didn't keep hold of the ball. There is plenty to work on but there were plenty of good things too."
Saint-André had a slightly different perspective on the Baa-Baas revival – "In the first-half we were still in the discoteque" – and estimated his team had missed "five or six tackles" in the lead-up to England's first try by James Haskell. "I think England will have a tough tour of Australia but some of their players hadn't played for a few weeks and we had a lot of quality players on our bench."
Johnson, for his part, is looking forward to being reunited with the Leicester players involved in Saturday's memorable Premiership final. "I thought yesterday's game was a fantastic game of rugby," he said. "It's not quite been a phoney war but it'll be good to get the full group together out there and get on with it. We know what we're looking at in terms of our Test team but there's always things to play for."
