England team to face South Africa: Alex Goode (Saracens, 4 caps); Chris Ashton (Saracens, 27 caps), Manusamoa Tuilagi (Leicester Tigers, 15 caps), Brad Barritt (Saracens, 9 caps), Mike Brown (Harlequins, 9 caps); Toby Flood (Leicester Tigers, 52 caps), Ben Youngs (Leicester Tigers, 26 caps); Alex Corbisiero (London Irish, 16 caps), Tom Youngs (Leicester Tigers, 2 caps), Dan Cole (Leicester Tigers, 33 caps), Joe Launchbury (London Wasps, 2 caps), Geoff Parling (Leicester Tigers, 10 caps), Tom Wood (Northampton Saints, 11 caps), Chris Robshaw (Harlequins, capt, 10 caps), Ben Morgan (Gloucester Rugby, 7 caps).
Replacements: David Paice (London Irish, 4 caps), David Wilson (Bath Rugby, 21 caps), Mako Vunipola (Saracens, 2 caps), Mouritz Botha (Saracens, 9 caps), Hames Haskell (London Wasps, 43 caps), Danny Care (Harlequins, 35 caps), Owen Farrell (Saracens, 10 caps), Jonathan Joseph (London Irish, 3 caps).
Well that's a little more like the correct balance to the team for me. I can't find fault with the forwards, in the absence of Lawes and Croft I think this is about as strong as we have. Am aware of the lack of a "fetcher" in the pack though. But chuffed Launchbury starts.
Delighted that Youngs is back with Flood as I think they are both better players with each other than with the likes of Care and Farrell and as things stand, are probably the obvious picks at half back. I do worry about the centres and I was hoping that Joseph would get a run out, but at least he is on the bench with a chance to influence matters in the 2nd half. At the start of the week I thought that Manu would be moved to the wing to replace Sharples but I think they have picked Brown to deal with the inevitable barrage of box kicks and high balls from the Saffas. We also need to kick a lot better than we have the last two weekends and again, Brown will help with this.
Let's hope this is the first of a home "win double" on Saturday afternoon
