A strong performance by England against Wales in the Rugby Union clash at Twickenham on Saturday saw the rugby betting world a little surprised by the result. One likes to be positive about the England victory which was platformed by a dominant forward unit that the Welsh couldn’t live with.

It was great to see Shaun Perry creating the kind of menacing presence around the scrum and breakdowns, that you would have associated with Matt Dawson or Kieran Bracken. The weight that he has lost has obviously paid off and has made him a more complete player in his position and if he can maintain consistency then he will be hard to edge out.

There has to be a word of caution to the victory though,. England, with the amount of possession they had, should have experimented more with the backs and let them work a few things out. They still look short of ideas in mid-field and we need to be sure that Andy Farrell can live with the Southern Hemisphere teams in attack. The guy can tackle but we need him to break the line and gain yardage, at present he seems to do like a forward, i.e. barge in and then fall over!

France will be a better test and to really stretch ourselves, we should spin it out. Get the backs tested in attack, let them make mistakes now while it’s not too dramatic if they get it wrong. This is the way Martin Johnson approached the 2003 campaign, with tough opposition for the warm up games to get the honest truth and know where we are at this stage.