England delay team announcement

England have delayed their team announcement for Sunday’s World Cup semi-final against France by 24 hours.

But head coach Clive Woodward today delivered another upbeat injury bulletin, headed by flanker Richard Hill’s probable return to action after a month on the World Cup sidelines.

Woodward had planned to unveil the starting line-up tomorrow, but it will now be done in the early hours of Thursday morning, UK time.

Leicester star Austin Healey arrived in Australia today as precautionary cover for full-back Josh Lewsey (hamstring) and wing Iain Balshaw (knee), but has not officially joined the squad while Woodward’s medical staff assess the latest injury position.

“There are no injuries that are long-term, and I have been told that Richard Hill will be training full-on today. That is the first time that he has been available since the first game (against Georgia),” said Woodward.

“With Austin Healey arriving, we have got cover, so I am just going to wait another 24 hours and keep talking to the medical team.

“At this stage, I believe that we will be picking from a full-strength squad, which is a fantastic position to be in for the semi-final of a World Cup.”

England are based at a beach-front hotel in the popular Manly resort – a stunning area of Sydney where Woodward used to live – but there will be little time for his players to enjoy the sights.

“This location was not my choice. It was going to be whoever won the qualifying pool got the Manly Pacific hotel, but we have to be careful,” he added.

“It is almost too nice with the beach and it being one of the most beautiful parts of Australia. It is just a case of keeping everybody’s mind focused on Sunday night – everyone is fully aware of what is at stake.”

The dust has now settled on England’s quarter-final victory over Wales, when the Six Nations champions were outscored 3-1 on tries and given a major fright.

And as Wales flew home today, England know that a repeat performance could see the world’s top-ranked side falling at the penultimate hurdle.

“We only have a week to sort it out before we face France. We know France well, and I think that the team are really looking forward to playing them,” Woodward said.

“We have no doubt that England can win this game, but we will have to improve dramatically on our performance against Wales. To do that, we just need to keep a cool head and sort one or two things out.

“France have had a good World Cup so far, and have played very, very well, but they have not been been pressurised like England will do at the weekend, and they know that.

“We know France very well – we played them once in August, and once in September – and it will be a great match-up.

“I have no fears of the French and I have a lot of respect for them, and I believe that if we get this week right, we don’t over-react and keep cool heads, then we will beat them.

“We have come to this tournament as one of the favourites, number one in the Zurich world rankings, and I think deep in the back of all our minds that we would have been very disappointed not to have made the semi-finals.

“I just feel that we are where we should be, and we have got a fantastic record over the past few months against these top sides in the world, including France.

“I feel more relaxed this week than I did at this point last week going into the Welsh game, which was a huge banana skin,” he added.

“Those guys played well. They had absolutely nothing to lose and that is how they played, and we just managed to scrape through and make the semi-final.

“But that is all history now, and we have to learn from the lessons of what happened in Brisbane, no more than that. We are just looking forward to the French game, and very excited about what could happen on Sunday evening.”