Young England stars show their steel

England 134 Romania 0

Martin Johnson sent Ben Kay a text message on his mobile phone the morning after England's win over Australia: 'Well done, son.'

After watching him clear the way for Champagne Charlie & Co to fill their boots against the pointless Romanians to the tune of 134-0, the England captain, recovering from injury, will be tempted to send his junior partner at Leicester a rather more pointed message this morning: 'Are you trying to take my place?'

The answer is very definitely in the affirmative. Satisfied that he could hardly have made more of the opportunity afforded by John-son's broken hand, the only son of Lord Justice Kay rests his case in the finest family tradition. As fore-man of the jury, Clive Woodward will return the verdict tomorrow.

The England manager will inevitably restore Johnson against South Africa at Twickenham on Saturday, once appraised of his fit-ness following Leicester's runaway win at Sale, his first match for five weeks.

But Kay, nicknamed 'M'Lud,' has made a submission, persuasive enough to ensure that despite Johnson's return he will still be on duty as one of the 22.

Johnson, pound for pound, may be the best forward in the world, but Kay has performed the mighty feat of making his return a little less of a foregone conclusion than it would have been a fortnight ago.

If England were going to the World Cup next month, he would be there as the first alternative to the Johnson-Danny Grewcock axis which underlines the upward mobility of a player who last year stood behind Garath Archer, Martin Corry and Steve Borthwick in the second row rankings.

Kay's vaulting ambition is such that he will be 'disappointed' not to make the starting team on Saturday. He said: 'I did not adopt the attitude that I was keeping the place warm for Jonno, but that I was going to do as well as I possibly could and make them think twice about selection. Hopefully, I have posed a question.

'That's all I could realistically expect. It wasn't as if I'd come to say: "Here's Ben Kay, he's going to replace Martin Johnson".

'He is a rugby legend and it's hard when someone that good is playing in your position, but he will not last forever. If I get a chance this week, I will make sure I am in the right frame of mind to take it.'

If it did nothing else, the rout proved England every bit as ruthless as they said they would be against hopelessly outclassed opponents. By the end, they had obliterated not only Romania but every record for the biggest Test win. The ferocity of competition within England's top 30 is such that nobody could afford to be showing the slightest pity.

'At times you felt slightly sorry for them but you knew you had to go flat out to the end,' said Kay. 'Ruthless was the word we had been using all week and that's a quality we will need at the World Cup.'

The only surprise was that it took England nine minutes to score the first of their 20 tries. Jason Robinson danced his way to four tries on a day when the England back three all ran in hat-tricks with Ben Cohen given more passes in an hour than so far this season.

It took the Romanian amateurs 42 minutes to win as much as a penalty and advance as far as the opposition 22, but they still had to be taken to the cleaners and Charlie Hodgson did it with the poise of a seasoned craftsman, flinging out a series of scoring passes off both hands as well as compiling a stag-gering total of 44 points.

Indeed, had the debutant Sale fly half's last conversion gone over instead of hitting an upright, he would have beaten Simon Culhane's world record of 45 set as the All Blacks beat Japan 145-17 in the 1995 World Cup.

While Jonny Wilkinson will, of course, be back for the serious stuff this Saturday, Woodward will have no qualms now about pitching Hodgson against the Springboks should the emergency arise.

The 21-year-old has shown what he can do, not that Twickenham is likely to witness a mis-match on such a scale again. Nor should it.

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