Some early interchange play, often involving Josh Lewsey, augured well But England could not sustain it.. A Guinness advertising line used to proclaim “good things come to those who wait” and Jerry Flannery is living proof. It has been a fair while since he was a teenager pulling pints of the black stuff in his father’s pub: his first start for Ireland against Italy in the opening match of this year’s Six Nations’ Championship came at the ripe old age of 27. “I’d always backed myself and was confident that I’d be good enough,” said Flannery, “but the waiting game is very tough.” So tough, in fact, that if the Munster hooker had failed to make a breakthrough this season – his third representing his home province – he would have given serious thought to playing elsewhere or even giving up all together. “I remember Declan Kidney [the Munster coach] telling us earlier this season that we were in the prime of our careers,” said Flannery. “And I was thinking, ‘I’m in the prime of my career but for the third year in a row I’m sitting on the bench’.

If you get in the Munster side you’re bound to be very close to international selection, and it comes down to having the patience to stick it out.. Scotland wrecked England’s Grand Slam ambitions – just as they did six years ago – by defeating them 18-12 in a gruelling Six Nations’ Championship scrap at Murrayfield. It was another wonderful evening for the game in Scotland. Once ahead, the Scots defended ferociously to complete a glorious victory and claim the Calcutta Cup for the first time since that 19-13 victory in 2000.. While it would be grossly unfair to point the finger at such a complex sort as Andrew Sheridan and so label him the living embodiment of English rugby’s “all brawn, little brain” problem, it is also mighty tempting. For as Scotland proved yesterday, picking on the biggest really can be the best policy. Yes, they ultimately won this match with their tenacious loose play and with a gutsy defensive game that gave new tangibles to physical endeavour, but tellingly Frank Hadden’s men also held their own against the mighty Red Rose scrum.

“Hold up Sheridan, hold up England”; so the mantra is starting to have it.. Before kick-off at Murrayfield last night they wheeled out the kilt-wearing, torch-bearing, pike-wielding extras from that Mel Gibson film, the name of which has become the standard Caledonian clich?or such occasions as this. The match programme carried an advert for a Scottish Sunday newspaper offering a Battle of Bannockburn CD, “telling the story of the most monumental battle between England and Scotland – and Scotland’s greatest triumph.” By the final whistle, none of the natives present were thinking of 1314 or other past glories They had the 18-12 overture of 2006 to savour. And what an overture it was – every bit as memorable as the Murrayfield classics of 1990 and 2000 And it was painstakingly crafted Or grafted, more like..

The Stade de France is not exactly Walmington-on-Sea, but France’s Dad’s Army provided an impressive take-off of Captain Mainwaring and his stumbling men. These old French chaps (eight of yesterday’s team were over 30) at times made Corporal Jones look positively sprightly. For more than 50 minutes, France’s rugby team looked as bumbling and idiotic as Dad’s Army on manoeuvres.. The last time the England rugby union team were up this way, the Scottish resistance went up in smoke. Only the pre-match fireworks and the massed ranks of the pipe bands succeeded in getting up the noses of Sir Clive Woodward and his men. Hope that it might be different at Murrayfield last night was not entirely pinned on a beefed-up Caledonian welcome, courtesy of the “tribal” band Clann an Drumm and a welcoming committee of flame-bearing, pike-wielding “clansmen from the past” as the teams entered the arena.