France based quartet Jonny
Wilkinson, Steve Thompson, Riki Flutey and James Haskell
have all been named in England's revised EPS squad.
Toulon's Wilkinson and
Brive's Flutey were both in Martin Johnson's previous EPS
squad, but Haskell and Thompson have both earned inclusion
after impressing for England during the November
internationals.
There was no place, however,
for Biarritz centre Ayoola Erinle - who earned a debut cap
during November - while the likes of Brive duo Andy Goode
and Jamie Noon remain excluded.
There were several new faces in the 32-strong squad, with
former
rugby league players
Shontayne Hape - who was capped 14 times by New Zealand -
and Chris Ashton both included, while Northampton pair
Courtney Lawes and Ben Foden also got promotion from the
England Saxons.
Johnson was in positive
mood at the squad announcement, welcoming the return to
fitness of several key players - such as Flutey, Toby Flood
and Delon Armitage - who were absent during the Autumn
internationals.
"We finally have the core guys back in and there's some
depth building. Every series has felt like starting again in
recent years and hopefully we can develop the consistency we
got towards the end of last year's Six Nations.
"I think we've got a good enough group of players to go into
any Six Nations game think about winning. There's no reason
we shouldn't be doing that," said Johnson.
England have a warm-weather training week in Portugal
starting on January 25th, before opening their Six Nations
campaign against Wales at Twickenham on February 6.
But while Johnson was celebrating the return of several
integral players his French counterpart Marc Lièvremont was
counting the cost of last weekend's league action in Top 14
as three Biarritz stars were sidelined.
All three, strangely, suffered injuries to their respective
left knees, with prop Fabien Barcella, scrum-half Dimitri
Yachvili and centre Damien Traille now set to miss France's
opening Six Nations game against Scotland on February 7th.
Top 14 Table
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Top 14 try-scorers
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Top 14 Results
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Top 14
Fixtures
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Top 14
Transfers
Barcella is expected to be out for two months, while Traille
and Yachvili are both looking at six weeks on the sidelines.
All three have been in excellent for for Biarritz of late
and the Basque club will also sorely miss their presence.
They should be able to cope sufficiently with their loss to
still progress in the Heineken Cup after winning their
opening four games - the only side to do so in the
competition - but the triple blow will be more keenly felt
in Top 14, where Biarritz currently lie eighth. They are
only two points off the play-off zone, but the absence of
Traille, Barcella and Yachvili is the last thing the club
would have wanted ahead of the crucial forthcoming derby
away to Basque rivals Bayonne.
