Post by Taxigirl on Nov 11, 2003 10:40:49 GMT
England's prospects of reaching the Rugby World Cup semi-final are the focus of much hand-wringing in Tuesday's UK sports pages.
The papers are still picking over the bones of England's less-than-convincing performance in their quarter-final defeat of Wales on Sunday.
And much of the attention is focused on the form - or lack of it - of star player Jonny Wilkinson.
Much has been made of what has generally been agreed to have been the fly-half's poor first-half performance.
But coach Clive Woodward has leapt to Wilkinson's defence.
"He's a completely different number 10 to anyone else in world rugby," Woodward says. "Because he's so aggressive defensively, he's playing like a wing-forward at times."
This cuts no ice in the Guardian, who write: "This is all fine and dandy, except that England already have several wing-forwards and need Wilkinson's tactical radar to function as well as his tackling."
Sue Mott in the Daily Telegraph thinks she knows where the solution lies - Wilkinson is falling prey to "paralysis by analysis".
"[Wilkinson's] obsession is his greatest strength and cruelly, at this World Cup, it is becoming his greatest weakness," she writes. "If only he would just relax."
But if Woodward has problems getting the best out of his star player, he is also winning no friends in the press pack for other reasons.
Richard Williams in the Guardian is one of several writers to point out Woodward's "tactics of evasion".
"Observers of England's campaign have become progressively less inclined to believe a word he says," Williams writes, highlighting the contradictions in Woodward's reporting of the fitness of some of his key players, especially Richard Hill.
Elsewhere, Leeds' sacking of Peter Reid prompts the usual mix of criticism and speculation.
Among the names linked to the vacant job at Elland Road are Paul Hart, Gordon Strachan, Neil Warnock, Gary Megson, George Graham, Gary McAllister and Micky Adams.
But the Daily Mirror puts the situation at Leeds into stark perspective.
One step from oblivion," the paper says. "If the board mess this one up [the] club will be finished."
Cheif sports writer Oliver Holt believes Reid should not be blamed for the problems at a club gone "stark staring, moon howling mad... gorging itself on the leading coaching talents in the game and then spewing them back out".
"He did his best in an impossible situation," Holt adds.
There are no such worries for Andrew Flintoff, who is being handed the ultimate compliment after his barn-storming innings against Bangladesh on Monday.
"Comparing talented young England all-rounders to Ian Botham is not the rage anymore, but perhaps it is time it was returned to fashion," the Guardian writes.
Flintoff has now equalled Botham's record of 44 sixes in one-day internationals - but in less than half the number of matches.
"There is sufficient evidence to argue that, in the one-day game at least, Flintoff is the more substantial player," the paper says.