Quarter final preview: As Neil Back noted earlier this week, England are three steps from heaven. Step one, though, involves knocking out a Wales team whose public have suddenly fallen back in love with them. Indeed, certain senior English players would rate jumping off Sydney Harbour Bridge as a less painful way to go than catching an early flight home on Monday.
The Wales coach Steve Hansen knows it, too, and there was a certain relish about the way he unveiled his quarter-final line-up yesterday, making four changes for tomorrow's game, three of them behind the scrum, where Iestyn Harris and Mark Jones return and Gareth Thomas wears the number 15 jersey.
It is up front, though, where the new-found Welsh confidence is most evident. The tough-tackling Dafydd Jones has been included in the back row with the admirable Martyn Williams, one of Hansen's chief lieutenants, on the bench. "We have picked a team with a certain plan in mind," said Hansen.
The first element of the blueprint is no secret. Wales are determined to match England's own big men physically early on, much as Samoa did in Melbourne, and then seize on any nerves which surface, like blackbirds chasing juicy worms.
Hansen needs no reminding what this game means to Englishmen like Lawrence Dallaglio, who still has the infamous defeat by Wales at Wembley in 1999 seared across his psyche. "They've put a lot of money, time and effort into this World Cup and they're under a lot of pressure to win it," he observed drily.
It merely confirmed what Hansen's opposite number Clive Woodward has always stressed: if anything is going to win England the World Cup it is their experience under fire. If that means continuing to pick Dallaglio when he is clearly short of his best form, so be it. The Wasps number eight has pledged, in return, that England will rise to the challenge.
"There's a genuine realisation there are no second chances," admitted Dallaglio, "There's no time for holding things back now. If we lose, it's the end of our World Cup. It's Sydney or London. That's the reality and everyone's aware of that."
There is a precedent for a Welsh quarter-final win over England, a side containing the current Welsh manager Alan Phillips winning 16-3 at nearby Ballymore in 1987. These days, though, the antipathy between the countries is not what it was. Josh Lewsey's mother hails from South Wales and is a fluent Welsh speaker, Dorian West was born in Wrexham and Will Greenwood's parents live in the principality.
But a World Cup quarter-final is a sympathy-free zone and England will be quite happy to secure a 50th win over their rivals by a solitary point. Unless Wales have more wizardry up their sleeves, a hard-earned 15-point English victory margin is more likely.
Guardian Service
ENGLAND: Lewsey; J Robinson, W Greenwood, M Tindall, B Cohen; J Wilkinson, M Dawson; J Leonard, S Thompson, P Vickery, M Johnson (captain), B Kay, L Moody, N Back, L Dallaglio. Replacements: D West, T Woodman, S Shaw, J Worsley, K Bracken, M Catt, I Balshaw.
WALES: G Thomas; M Jones, M Taylor, I Harris, S Williams; S Jones, G Cooper; I Thomas, R McBryde, A Jones, B Cockbain, R Sidoli, D Jones, C Charvis (capt), J Thomas. Replacements: M Davies, G Jenkins, G Llewellyn, M Williams, D Peel, C Sweeney, K Morgan.
Referee: A Rolland (Ireland)
