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Bryn Palmer

Farrell facing ultimate test (246)

Versailles - So how did it come to this?

After four years of planning - or maybe four months, no, on second thoughts, weeks, perhaps days – England's number 10 jersey for the critical game of their World Cup campaign will be occupied by a man with no experience of playing senior rugby union at fly-half.

Surely some mistake? ‘Fraid not, for those of you of a red rose persuasion.

You could put it down to extreme bad luck, and Brian Ashton certainly deserves some sympathy there.

After all, who could have predicted that Jonny Wilkinson would get injured in an innocuous training ground incident?

Oh hang on, with his record…

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Ben Dirs

Cognac and raw pasta on the menu (21)

Condom, France - I swear on everything that is dear to me that we did not plan to end up in Condom last night.

The idea was to stop off in Agen on the way to Toulouse, but the lack of a campsite meant we had to push on a few extra miles and the next decent-sized town happened to be what the French might refer to as capote anglaise.

We resisted taking a hilarious picture of one of us sniggering under a Condom road sign, but it does mean we will have to put our snail eating contest on the backburner for a couple of weeks.

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