England's lions rampant in Cardiff

THE England captain Phil de Glanville insisted none of his players had gone to Wales thinking about the Lions, yet few will have returned home after imperiously clinching the Triple Crown without pondering their prospects of making the forthcoming tour to South Africa.

When Fran Cotton's final squad is announced on April 2nd it will be surprising if the England team - minus Will Carling but plus Jeremy Guscott and Will Greenwood - is not promptly issued with 16 Lions blazers.

The Triple Crown may be a mere bagatelle in world terms but England's four-try triumph once again underlined their massive superiority over the Celts with whom they must shortly make common cause against the Springboks. While France duly completed the grand slam in Paris, England were establishing a record points aggregate (141) for the championship and increasing their try count to a record equalling 15, a figure they also achieved in 1992.

It is easy to find fault with de Glanville's highly inconsistent team which sprinkles unforced errors around like confetti, yet ambitious and challenging players such as Tim Stimpson, Jon Sleightholme, Guscott, Richard Hill, Tim Rodber and Martin Johnson, have together made England the most compelling side in the Five Nations. Once again their tries were scored in a blistering second half salvo which on this occasion lasted 24 minutes and yet again they left scores on the floor which could have taken them beyond 50 points.

Naturally the England coach Jack Rowell was disposed to be generous to a squad that, well within the hour, was well on the way to only their third win in Cardiff in 34 years: every substitute except Andy Gomarsall was given a taste of the action, earning his full £3,000 match fee plus another cap. Perverse as ever, Rowell said Guscott, who replaced the injured Sleightholme at half-time, should be in the Lions' test side, begging the question of why England have left the Bath star on the bench this season.

If England publicly acknowledged that professionalism implies a duty to entertain instead of mouthing the party line about going out there to win" then Guscott, who made the pulses of 53,000 fans quicken every time he got the ball, would have been on the field from the start. Had he played against France 16 days ago, England might even be celebrating Rowell's second grand slam ...

Still, England showed no loss of nerve after the France defeat and might well have scored three additional tries had Sleightholme and Guscott not been bravely stopped by Jonathan Davies and Stimpson's second touch down not been over-ruled by the referee. As de Glanville remarked "we don't go out to play boring rugby. We want to be positive and while we're not worried about having to entertain we do believe we're likely to be at, our most entertaining when we get all 15 players involved in the game.

Wales denied their opponents the set-piece control they would have liked before the break and kept the half time score down to 3-6 but thereafter, the back row without Colin Charvis and the back division bereft of Scott Gibbs Ieuan Evans and Neil Jenkins (who fractured his arm) looked increasingly fragile.

Crucially Wales, who had two 32-year-olds, Alan Bateman and Nigel Davies, paired at centre, lacked the explosive pace required at this level to breach a solid English defence or to withstand the flexible multi-skilled attacks that involved Hill, Austin Healey, Rodber, Guscott and Tony Underwood. This season, the France game apart, England's forwards have shown they possess the stamina, mobility and handling skill to develop the interactive game with the backs that Rowell desires.

Meanwhile, it will be intriguing to see whether the Mike Catt/Simon Grayson rivalry for the number 10 shirt preoccupies the Lions' selectors, who must also consider afresh the merits of de Glanville, controversially omitted from the preliminary squad of 62 last month. His 72nd minute try, courtesy of a superb break by Catt, completed a blitz which began with Guscott sending Stimpson over at the right flag and continued with the Bath centre sidestepping two defenders to create a short range score for Hill.

Between times Carling hacked the ball sideways from a ruck for Underwood to gather and sprint 55 metres down the left touchline for an opportunist try. It was the freakiest transfer old dimple chin has delivered in his 72 internationals but, as he would say, they all count.