Neil Back

Momentum vital for England

Fri Nov 06 09:26AM

I said in my last blog that I believe England can beat the Wallabies and, judging where they are at the moment, I think two wins out of three this autumn will be a reasonable return.

There may be a few new faces in the England set-up but they have a huge incentive to do well and try to keep possession of the jersey for the following games with Argentina and New Zealand.

I've used this example before, but you only have to look at where Delon Armitage - arguably England's best player over the last 12 months - was this time last year.

Whether England achieve this goal of two wins will depend very much on how they start against Australia.

This Wallabies team are more experienced than the England team they will be facing but they have had their own problems recently and are also missing a couple of key players.

If England start well then the pressure will build on Australia and their task will become harder as the game goes on.

A win over Australia will give Martin Johnson's team a huge boot ahead of their clash with Argentina, who I fancy England to beat despite them being higher in the IRB rankings.

If they get two wins under their belt England will then have real momentum ahead of the All Blacks clash, and who knows what they can achieve with that sort of confidence going into the game.

I recently witnessed at Leeds Carnegie what a win can do for a side's belief and confidence. It should not be underestimated.

I think Wales also have a good chance against New Zealand this weekend.

Playing the Al Blacks is always a great occasion and although Wales are missing a few key players, they have a strong squad and a real chance of recording their first win over New Zealand after 20 defeats.

There is always a favourite in every game and the record books are there to be re-written, so there is no reason why Wales cannot get the result their fans so desperately want.

Wales have some very good players, some who performed superbly against world champions South Africa with the Lions, and if the team plays to its best ability then I fancy them to shock New Zealand.

 ----------

As I said earlier in this piece, we were delighted to get our first Premiership win of the season at Wasps last weekend.

We knew we had the ability; it was just a matter of showing a bit more mental discipline and better game management.

Although we had been genuinely competitive in all but one of our six games before the trip to Adams Park, until you get the win you will always have a slight doubt in your mind.

Any doubts have now gone and I just wish we had another Premiership game this weekend. We will be taking the Anglo-Welsh Cup game with my old club Leicester seriously, but our priority this season is to stay in the top flight.

We face the Tigers and Sale over the next two weekends in the Anglo-Welsh, before facing them again in the league and I doubt very much either side will want to show their hand.

Our win at Wasps showed just how competitive the Premiership is this season. We still have a great deal of hard work ahead of us, but I think we have shown that we can compete with any club.

The simple fact is that there are no easy games for any of the Premiership clubs this season.

• Email
• Share:
  • Delicious
  • Digg
  • Facebook
  • Stumbleupon
  • Reddit
  • Newsvine