"Having a working relationship with those senior international players can only be a great thing for me,'' he said.Meanwhile, Cullen will not take the Warrington captaincy away from Lee Briers, despite his arrest for drink-driving after Sunday's game in London. Briers was banned from driving for 18 months yesterday but Cullen said that any action from the club would be kept in-house.Warrington expect to field an unchanged team on Sunday against Hull, who will still be without their goal-kicking winger Matt Crowther. Better injury news for the Humberside club is that Warren Jowitt has had a successful pelvic operation which should cure his long-running injury problems.The Wigan chairman, Maurice Lindsay, has called for the overseas quota to be cut to two players per club. It is to be reduced from five to three by 2005, but Lindsay believes it should come down further in order to foster young British talent.Halifax's Cumbrian forward Paul Davidson was relieved to discover yesterday that he did not suffer a broken arm in Sunday's game at Bradford.Cumbria's three professional clubs – Barrow, Workington and Whitehaven – all want to host the county's game against New Zealand A this autumn.. It is entirely appropriate that Neil Back should have plenty on his mind, given his status as the conscience, as well as the motivator-in-chief, of the most potent England team of the post-war era. "Why not look at the good news, the 30 victories from 34 games since the last World Cup? No other international side can boast that record. It's why we are ranked No 1."This is part of the 34-year-old occasional captain's uncommonly influential role in the current England set-up: to accentuate the positives; to emphasise the strengths of an outstanding team blessed with most, if not all, the talents; to create and nurture a can-do spirit among a group of hardened professionals who are happy to look up to him, albeit while peering down on his 5ft 9in frame.
When Back speaks, in his brass-tacks East Midlands tone, everyone listens Yes, even Matthew Dawson. Even Austin Healey, when he is around.But the disappointments of the recent past do prey on his mind, not least because he is one of five of this weekend's side – Dawson, Jonny Wilkinson, Jason Leonard and Richard Hill are the others – who started all three of those infernal fixtures against the Celts.As Back readily admitted yesterday, he would have delivered the "different time, different team" speech after each of those setbacks, if only for public consumption. However, he senses a harder edge to English attitudes on this occasion. Nine years after winning his first cap in a Five Nations scrap with Scotland, he can finally smell a Slam in the air."Why is it different this time? Look at what this group of players achieved in the autumn and you have your answer," he said. "We faced three massive challenges in three weeks – the All Blacks, the Wallabies and the Springboks – and we came through. We have matured together, put together a recent record that is great by anyone's standards and built up our confidence as a result. I've been really impressed by the laid-back atmosphere in training this week, given the scale of the occasion on Sunday.
The weather has made things easier, of course – lovely fast going, the ball whizzing through the hands nicely – but there is more to it than that. Everyone involved, from the management and senior players right down to the guys with the fewest caps, are genuinely relaxed about the job in hand.Generally speaking, Back does not "do" relaxed. As one of the principal figures in match preparation, he has been known to delay a session because colleagues have not been in what he considers to be the optimum frame of mind. "I don't mind you cracking jokes and having a laugh, but we're not going near that training pitch until you've finished," is his standard line. On the other hand, not everyone can operate at his level of intensity while retaining the all-important splinter of ice in the veins.
Back understands the importance of his youngers and lessers avoiding the worst excesses of the big-match brouhaha."There is no getting away from the fact that this is a massive game," he admitted. "But then, we identified this as where we wanted to be right back at the start of the season. I said in September that I regarded this as our Grand Slam season, despite the extreme effort involved in winning all five matches in seven weeks. If we want to show the best of ourselves at the World Cup this autumn, this is precisely the kind of occasion we need to handle."Unusually well rested after a tour-less summer last year and injury breaks either side of Christmas, Back is perfectly set for a third World Cup campaign. He wrote: "I have never doubted your abilities as a coach and, equally, do recognise that there have been many achievements during your time at the club of which you can rightly be proud. "Obviously, our position in the Premier League both this year and last year has been disappointing, particularly given the degree of investment and resources provided, and I am sure you would be the first to agree."Fulham finished 13th last season after being runaway champions of the First Division in Tigana's first season in charge and, although they reached the FA Cup semi-final and secured a place in the Uefa Cup through the Intertoto competition, have flirted with relegation this season. The most likely option is a return to their former home Craven Cottage as part of the financial cut-backs.In a personal letter to the manager, reproduced on the club's website, , Fayed revealed his frustration over the amount of money he feels he has spent.
