RUGBY: For the first time in eight matches this season Clive Woodward has announced an unchanged England side.

For the Six Nations title decider against Ireland on Sunday, the head coach's only changes to his 22-man squad from the 40-9 win over Scotland involve some tinkering with the replacements.

Analysis of the Scottish match video has instead prompted a collective vote of confidence in his starting XV, with Kyran Bracken and Dorian West preferred on the bench to Andy Gomarsall and Mark Regan respectively. The Bath lock Steve Borthwick is on standby awaiting the outcome of last night's disciplinary hearing involving Danny Grewcock.

England's team has so much experience it could lecture on Grand Slam deciders. Matt Dawson, captain for England's past failures in Edinburgh and Dublin, is merely the latest to have earned a 50th cap.

It is the adjustments on the bench, that betray Woodward's determination not to be outflanked. West, at 35, has been at the heart of Leicester's pack long not to panic whatever the pressure and, as a lineout thrower, could find club-mates Martin Johnson and Ben Kay in his sleep.

Gomarsall's crime is to have been part of the Gloucester team who froze against Munster in the Heineken European Cup this year. Rather than risk reopening such mental scars, Woodward has plumped for the Dublin-born Bracken, who is one of only four Englishmen - Johnson, Jason Leonard and Graham Rowntree are the others - who have won a Grand Slam.

ENGLAND: Lewsey (Wasps); Robinson (Sale), Greenwood (Harlequins), Tindall (Bath), Cohen (Northampton); Wilkinson (Newcastle), Dawson (Northampton); Rowntree (Leicester), Thompson (Northampton), Leonard (Harlequins), Johnson (Leicester, capt), Kay (Leicester), Hill (Saracens), Back (Leicester), Dallaglio (Wasps). Replacements: West (Leicester), Woodman (Gloucester), Grewcock (Bath), Worsley (Wasps), Bracken (Saracens), Grayson (Northampton), Luger (Harlequins).