No went for a walk in the very muddy countryside. I always like to "train" before a big match. I am not a middle-aged Gareth Hock. I take things seriously.

As to the France match - that was for large parts of it we stank. Didn't you spot the correlation between what I wrote and reality?

Returning to the forward battle, I think the key will be how we man up. If we can contain them without resort to overly compressing the defence and thereby leaving lots of space on the outside we'll win. Keep the "wall of white" at all times and we've got a chance provided individuals can hold the opposition in the middle.

Lets hope for one thing only a England win and then a England win in the final lets

this to me is the key thing.

If you listen to people talking about NZ you hear about the superhumans that have smashed everything put before them, and England have scraped through against poor opposition. Reality is that England had tougher games in the groups (Fiji are better than Samoa and France, Ireland and PNG are probably similar); and England had a tougher quarter final yet NZ only scored 1 try more.

Both have played France, 34-6 to 48-0, is hardly a seismic difference in scoreline (and if England hadn't put the cue on the rack in the 2nd half we would have won more easily).

We beat Fiji comfortably, Fiji beat Samoa comfortably, but Samoa pushed NZ hard in the 2nd half of that first game. If England's forwards get stuck in, like the Samoan forwards did, we have seen what happens, and they look distinctly beatable.

The only issue for me is that in every game we have had 20 really good minutes, then either put the cue on the rack or, as against Australia, been weakened by the interchanges available. If we start like we did against the Aussies, we will be able to maintain the momentum this time around.

I've just bought my tickets for the final, so we've got to win now.

Another reason England could win is to compare how each team fared in their most recent match against Australia. England narrowly losing 28-20 and NZ comfortably losing 32-12.