Today's other stories in brief

Andy calls it wrong

It didn't take Andy Robinson long to get back to Twickenham. The former England coach turned up on television on Saturday to declare he would not have picked Jonny Wilkinson for yesterday's Calcutta Cup match against Scotland had he still been in situ as supremo.

Those who watched the autumn international series, in which England bottomed out, will recall that the last time Robinson publicly set foot on the hallowed turf, he and his English side were booed out off the pitch and later pilloried in the media.

But Robinson didn't hesitate to explain why he would have omitted one of the most influential number 10s of all time.

"For my money, Jonny is going to have a great game today," said Robinson sagely. "But international rugby is very unforgiving. I'd have thought that we'd have wanted Jonny fully fit for the game against Ireland."

A compliment to Eddie O'Sullivan's side, you would have thought. Oh dear, though - he tipped Italy to beat France.

Three reach 50 mark

Three England players gained 50th caps in Saturday's match against Scotland. Captain Phil Vickery first played against Wales in 1998, while former captain Martin Corry began his career 10 years ago against Argentina.

Mike Tindall, who has scored 12 tries for England, first pulled on an England shirt in 2000 against Ireland in the Six Nations championship.

For those of you with long memories, the former grammar school boy and current Gloucester centre also scored a touchdown on his debut.

Incidentally, Iain Balshaw also made his debut against Ireland, as a replacement in 2000, while Jonny Wilkinson did so in 1998, also as a replacement.

Rog has Welsh number

The programme for yesterday's match between Ireland and Wales contained some interesting figures. The number 33 was the time in seconds it took for Ieuan Evans to score a try against Ireland in 1977. Seven was the number of times Gareth Thomas played against Ireland. Sixty is the number of miles that allegedly separate Wales from Ireland (closer than Dublin and Belfast).

Fifty-thousand was the number of supporters crammed into St Helen's Stadium, Swansea, to watch Wales beat Ireland 12-7 back in the mid-1950s. One was the depth in feet of snow that covered some parts of Belfast's Ravenhill in 1930, which led to the match between Ireland and Wales being postponed from March 13th until April 3rd.

Our favourite number, however, is 59. That's the number of points Ronan O'Gara had scored against Wales before he added nine in yesterday's match.

Rupee union indeed

So why do England play against Scotland for a trophy called the Calcutta Cup? Twickenham is full of historians and the Calcutta Cup, the oldest rugby inter-nation trophy in the world, came about when some expatriates from India sent over 600 rupees to have a trophy made for the match.

Clever guys they were, too. They couldn't spend the silver rupees in Britain, so they melted down the metal and cast a spanking new trophy. The Calcutta Cup was born.

Will spared violence

England's Prince William was at The Millennium Stadium for yesterday's Six Nations match. Thankfully, it didn't descend into the violence his daddy witnessed in 1969 when Prince Charles made his first visit to Cardiff Arms Park to watch the match involving Tom Kiernan's Ireland.

While the Free Wales Army had threatened to blow up the prince, which made security particularly tight, that day the terrorism was mostly on the field. After six minutes Noel Murphy received a "right royal punch" from the Welsh skipper, Brian Price. When the haymaker connected, Murphy fell backward and then all hell broke loose.

Apparently some French players had told Wales the best way to beat Ireland was to shut them up and the two chief "talkers" on the pitch were Ken Kennedy and Murphy.