When Jonathan Joseph walked off the field at Twickenham on Valentine’s Day, he’d found an entire nation had fallen in love. In love with a man who had just put in a man of the match performance with his fleet-footed, fluid, and lightning quick style of play. The tabloids are already touting him as the new Jeremy Guscott. One thing is for sure, the young Bath centre has arrived in international rugby.

The 23-year-old has so far been the stand out player in the Six Nations for England, and possibly the whole tournament, scoring three tries, and has left the nation feeling like there is no hole at all left by Manu Tuilagi who has sat out the tournament so far due to a pelvic injury.

It’s been a sharp rise to fame for Joseph, with the former London Irish man the top-ranked centre in the country in the Aviva Premiership, forming a terrific partnership with Kyle Eastmond, and seemingly making him an integral part of England’s future.
Originally it may not have been Twickenham where he would be representing his nation however, with both Derby County and tennis coach Ashley Broomhead having high hopes for him. Broomhead even thought he was actually better than Murray when the two were just young players in the national futures scheme. Joseph is really a multi-talented sportsman!

A place at the academy at Pride Park followed before eventually settling on rugby with the London Irish development squad. But it was perhaps through dance where he found his rhythm, a rhythm that tore through the Italians just a few weeks ago.
Taking up dance in high school, he developed quick feet that stood out like nobody else in the country, earning call ups to England in his age group and breaking into The Exiles first team in 2009. His youth coach at the club, Justin Bishop, said, “If you had to single out one outstanding attribute it was his feet.
“He could double step you and you wouldn’t know which way he was going to go.”

A skill now noticed by world rugby. Many believe Joseph could be the key link to not only winning the Six Nations (they are favourites to do so with Betbright) but England could also win the World Cup on home soil this year should they overcome the monumental challenge of beating the All Blacks.
There’s still plenty to play for between now and then but England look up for the fight.

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Link’s axe looms as doubt surrounds Genia’s position in the team

Link’s axe looms as doubt surrounds Genia’s position in the team.

Halfback Genia shapes as the big casualty because coach Ewen McKenzie beat the drum of consistency and performance so zealously on Monday when he announced 91-Test hooker Stephen Moore as the new Wallabies skipper.

Despite a scintillating man-of-the-match performance against the Highlanders last weekend, it appears it’s too little, too late. The word from within the Wallabies camp is that Ewen McKenzie favours both the Brumbies Nic White and the Waratahs Nick Phipps.

“Unluckily for me, it’s going to be a tough day at the office when we finally sort it out,” he said of some of the selection quandaries.

“That’s a good situation for the Wallabies, it’s tough on individuals, but the way performance works is that performance gets you in but it’s performance that keeps you there. So, if you get a chance, you have to deliver.”

Dropping the 55-test Genia for the second time in 10 months is still a huge call after he rediscovered his form on the November tour of Europe.

But that’s not the only headache for McKenzie, who admits the Wallabies are “playing catch-up” leading into their first test this weekend.

Wallabies captain, Stephen Moore, flanked by the co-vice-captains, Adam Ashely-Cooper and Michael Hooper

As a result, “Link” is wasting no time in assessing his squad at their Gold Coast camp, going off a combination of Super Rugby form, incumbency and instinct ahead of the team announcement later today.

“We haven’t got enough time, we have to get on with it,” he said.

“We have a finite number of training sessions and the French have been here since the middle of last week.

“They’re missing a couple of players but they still have 24 players who’ve been in camp since before they came here and they’ve been in (Australia) since the middle of last week.

“In that sense, we’re playing catch-up.”

McKenzie acknowledged the strong performances of the Waratahs and Western Force made picking the 32-man squad extremely difficult.  But said that last weekends results where the Waratahs got on top of the back-to-back champions, the Chiefs and the Brumbies dismantling the Rebels justified his selections.

“The squad we’ve picked reflects really good form across all the teams in Super Rugby, which I’m pleased about,” McKenzie said.

“Since we’ve announced the squad, it’s been confirmed to me that we picked the right guys so that will make selection really difficult.

“The team that I announce, there will be good players that will miss out.”

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