Amazing! Ashton can pick from strength

It would be stretching a point to say Brian Ashton is suddenly inundated with good news, but as the England head coach enjoys a short holiday in Italy before Friday's announcement of a World Cup training squad to go to Portugal, there is the rare chance for a spot of blue-sky thinking. Ashton's own constitution is back to normal after all manner of discomfort caused by the mystery stomach bug he brought home from the grim tour of South Africa, and the overall bill of health of his squad is growing cleaner by the week.

One blot on the postcard is that Jason Robinson - generally reckoned to be one of the five "definites" in Ashton's World Cup XV - will have a minor clear-out operation on his right knee on Tuesday. It may rule Robinson out of the 40 to 45 players who will muster for 12 days at Browns Sports & Leisure Club on the Algarve from 25 June.

Still, at Robinson's erstwhile club Sale, and elsewhere, there is the welcome sight of players jostling for selection. Charlie Hodgson and Andrew Sheridan are available to Ashton for the first time since he became coach last December. Ashton, who has just endured an energy-sapping week of diarrhoea, sleep deprivation and loss of weight, can even live with the mildly disconcerting revelation that the recent run of injuries suffered by Mark Cueto were partly down to the Sale wing driving his Porsche 911. He has swapped it for a Mini. Amazingly, after the apparently constant disruption since the World Cup in November 2003, only three players - scrum-half Harry Ellis, No 8 James Forrester and prop Tim Payne - are definite lost causes, and only Ellis of these would be considered a first choice.

Ashton must register 50 players with the Rugby World Cup organisers by Friday, but he can tinker with that list before nominating a final 30-man squad on 14 August. Thereafter, the only alterations can be through injury.

So who else is in and who is out? Ashton said any unheralded bolters were "most unlikely", but Dan Ward-Smith and Mike Tindall are among those who may be allowed extra time to make the three warm-up matches in August or simply the World Cup itself. Ward-Smith, the uncapped Bristol No 8, is rehabilitating in the US after a knee reconstruction and Tindall has resumed light training at Gloucester after an operation in April to pin a broken tibia.

If Lawrence Dallaglio is recalled - a move Ashton has hitherto rejected - there will be one more back-rower chasing too few places. Joe Worsley, Lewis Moody and Tom Rees lead a queue also comprising Nick Easter, Magnus Lund, James Haskell, Ben Skirving, Andy Hazell, Pat Sanderson and Richard Hill. Whoever fails to make the Algarve can surely forget France in the autumn. Haskell, a 22-year-old reincarnation of Dallaglio, really ought to get the nod.

And what of Andrew Farrell? When Clive Woodward reigned supreme he liked to consult regularly with a select group of senior players. Ashton prefers to talk to players, young or old, in the "specific decision-making positions", one of which is inside- centre. Farrell won an inconclusive three caps at No 12 in the Six Nations' Championship and has since missed the past four Tests. Mike Catt and Toby Flood have filled the inside-centre role instead, and those two plus Bath's Olly Barkley, who helped England Saxons win the Churchill Cup last weekend, look better bets. Ashton sets great store by the pivotal 10-12 combination. With Hodgson joining Jonny Wilkinson, Catt, Flood, Barkley and Shane Geraghty in the mix, is there any more need to persevere with Farrell?

"The door is not closed on anyone," Ashton insisted.

And, however belatedly, the onus is on him now to come up with a gameplan. He has approximately 25 training days, including a pair of four-day stints at Bath University in July, before England face Wales and France at Twickenham on 4 and 11 August. "We were the only country in the Six Nations whose players went off to play club games," said Ashton. "They're victims of the system and it's pretty distracting when they're pulled from Twickenham to their clubs. We've now got three months when they don't have to think about anything else. That's a massive benefit, I suspect, from the mental point of view even more than the physical one."

When do England play in the World Cup? rugbyworldcup.com/EN

Interesting? Click here to explore further