The Independent on Sunday's Hugh Godwin talks to England scrum-half Ben Youngs ahead of their Six Nations clash with Scotland.
"Amid the ancient splendour of Oxford, across the road from the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Ben Youngs was pondering a question of the ages. "Who else can come on as a sub and nail a 45-metre kick?" England's scrum-half said when asked to compare the merits of Jonny Wilkinson, his part-time half-back partner, and Toby Flood, with whom Youngs has struck up an umbilical understanding for club and country. "You can count them on your fingers," Youngs replied to his own question – and he didn't mean two hands.
"England handled Flood with care during a three-day break in Oxford. It was meant as a refresher course in a seven-week Six Nations' Championship campaign that England have begun in A-plus fashion with wins over Wales, Italy and France, but the Leicester fly-half went up to the Dreaming Spires with a limp in his right leg from a sore Achilles tendon. Flood rested instead of training and though the official prognosis is that he will be fit to face Scotland next Sunday, and therefore Ireland in Dublin the week after, it raised the thought that sooner or later Youngs and Wilkinson may have to start together."
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