Eddie Butler passes judgement over Martin Johnson's slow-and-steady England selection in The Guardian.
"When Martin Johnson began drafting the likes of Julian White and Andy Goode into his extended Six Nations squad it seemed that adding ballast came before giving extra thrust to the good ship of English rugby. And now that the veteran prop takes his place on the bench and the burly outside half, thanks to a calf injury to Toby Flood and the demotion of Danny Cipriani to the Saxons, enters the starting 15, the confirmation is there.
"England want to play the game at their pace, and it is not the speed of the hare. This is a selection with first things first in mind, at a time when the invitation to international teams is to invent fresh ways of managing the game in general and keeping the ball off the floor in particular.
"Any tingle comes with the brothers Armitage: Steffon introduced into the back row as a ball-carrying, ground-hugging open-side; Delon at full-back, presumably given licence to roam and counter-attack. But the elevation of the wing forward came only because the more experienced Lewis Moody, Michael Lipman and Tom Rees were injured."
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