England 17 Barbarians 14:THE BARBARIANS are usually welcome at Twickenham but yesterday they did rather more harm than good. Rarely has such a large, expectant crowd been treated to a less fulfilling end-of-season fixture involving England, and nasty facial knocks suffered by Charlie Hodgson and Toby Flood further dissipated the feel-good factor left over from the previous day's Premiership final. The pair are still scheduled to depart for New Zealand this evening but will be in no mood for any traditional Maori nose-rubbing on their arrival.
Hodgson was the victim of a clash of heads with the hulking figure of the All Black flanker Jerry Collins but escaped with a headache and 13 stitches on his right cheek.
With Flood suffering only heavy bruising after a high challenge from the Springbok backrow Pedrie Wannenburg, England can breath a sigh of relief in terms of their outhalf resources but may yet have to summon another centre to replace Dan Hipkiss.
Hipkiss, himself called up late as cover for Danny Cipriani, also took a heavy blow to his cheekbone and eye socket against Wasps and will have further tests today.
As for the selectorial positives they had hoped to transport down to the Southern Hemisphere from yesterday's game, England will not have much to declare in terms of excess baggage.
A less blissed-out festival occasion it is hard to imagine and both teams, in time-honoured fashion, chose to blame the referee and their opponents.
"The Barbarians came here very determined to stop us playing," sniffed Rob Andrew, England's caretaker coach and tour manager. Mark Regan, the Barbarians captain, saw it rather differently. "We certainly didn't come here to kill the game, we came here to win. I felt we were harshly treated at the breakdown."
Quite what Martin Johnson made of it all we can only guess, the new England manager preferring to take a back seat and leave Andrew to do the talking.
There was some encouragement in terms of the lineout, with both hookers and Nick Kennedy also putting themselves about in the loose, while Bristol's Jason Hobson enjoyed a briefly entertaining dust-up with his club-mate Regan. After Hodgson's departure in the 34th minute, however, there was precious little in the way of inspiration for far too long.
Admirers of the Barbarian ethos were left equally dismayed. The programme listed Gareth Thomas as playing on the right wing but until he was sent to the sinbin on the hour it remained an unsubstantiated rumour.
If there were any bright spots in the first half they came in the form of Hodgson's weighted passes to a flying Tait, with one beautiful 60-metre break setting the tone all too briefly. Nick Easter at least marked his first game as an England captain with a close-range try, but England could not profit when Ma'ama Molitika was in the sinbin and conceded a soft try when Chris Jones's attempted pass to Flood was intercepted by Seilala Mapusua.
Tait did cut back on a fine angle that wrong-footed even the referee, George Clancy.
Thomas belatedly contributed a 77th-minute try for the Baa-Baas but very little else about the game will linger in his memory.
ENGLAND: Brown; Ojo, Tait, Flood, Strettle; Hodgson, Wigglesworth; Lloyd, Paice, Hobson; Jones, Kennedy; Narraway, Skinner, Easter. Replacements: Monye for Flood (59 mins), Richards for Hodgson 34 mins, Care for Wigglesworth (half-time), Wilson for Lloyd (70 mins), Hartley for Paice (half-time), Guest for Narraway (66 mins).
BARBARIANS: Delport; G Thomas, Turinui, Mapusua, Balshaw; Larkham, A Gomarsall; Pucciariello, Regan, Visagie; Chesney, Harrison, J Collins, Molitika, Wannenburg. Replacements: Jackson for Delport (63 mins), Pretorius for Larkham (68 mins), Claasens for Gomarsall (70 mins), Bruno for Regan (65 mins), Collazo for Vizagie (57 mins), Croft for Molitika (59 mins).
Referee: G Clancy (Ireland).
