Rugby Union: Jason Robinson

There is something about Sale, the club owned by a Scotsman, Brian Kennedy, and coached by a Frenchman, Philippe Saint-Andre, with his Welsh assistant, Kingsley Jones, that offers hope to the English game. And not a moment too soon. A little cheer, you may have noticed, is sorely needed.

Not that it will be easy. In death-Pool 3 - and while the Ospreys have the relative luxury of back-to-back fixtures against Calvisano - the champions of England will slug it out with Stade Francais, never out of contention in domestic or continental competition.

And just to make the challenge a little more testing, Sale will start the hard way, in Paris for the first leg of this halfway mini series in the qualification process. A serious attempt will be made today at the Parc des Princes to break the attendance record, set by the 34,000 who watched Toulouse beat Wasps last season, for a Heineken Cup pool game.

Just for good measure, Sale find themselves on this Parisian away-break without several of their best players. Stade might be ruing, with the familiar rumble, that requires no translation, of club disquiet at the cost of providing players for the country - they lost back-row Remy Martin and hooker Dimitri Szarzewski during France's autumn series - but Sale can top any injury toll.

They are without Andrew Sheridan and Charlie Hodgson, felled while on England duty, and Jason White, while on Scotland. Not to mention Elvis Seveali'i who went down for the sporting cause of - and this is a new one - the Pacific Islanders.

But there's something about Sale... Perhaps it is the old thing about fighting for recognition. In their own city, that is; never mind across the land. These are the rugby champions of England, who play out of Stockport County. It's good for the chippiness that always helps on such occasions, especially at swanky Parisian clubs where the fur lies thick around the collar.

Maybe it's the thought that they fell into a trap last year of never really believing they could win in France (OK, in Spain, because Biarritz took their quarter-final down the Basque Country road to the Estadio Anoeta in San Sebastian).

Or maybe they are still haunted by the Munster pool game of last season, yet another of those 'would be a miracle if it didn't happen all the time' occasions at Thomond Park, Limerick, where Sale went down 31-7, and when anything less would have spared them an away tie in the last eight. Of such defeats one season is resolve born the next.

Or maybe it's not something about Sale at all, but a someone. To be precise, Jason Robinson.

In the search for good cheer in the English game there is little point in going back to 2003, the year of the World Cup that is as fast becoming an impediment to progress as it remains a monument to success. And it might seem equally unrewarding, in the scouring of the land to bring forth players as fresh of thought as of legs, to linger too long on anyone over 30.

If England go for a stop-gap approach to the 2007 World Cup they will come unstuck. A short-term coach, even one as engaging and as unambitious to do it for any great length as Eddie Jones, would struggle to untangle the mixed messages that are confusing camp England.

A reintroduction of players with experience would only add dogma to doctrines that need to be written anew. That generation of World Cup winning players, such as Lawrence Dallaglio or Richard Hill, is spent. Great players that they were, their legs, in accordance with the strict laws of nature and the equally cruel demands of their jobs, are gone. They can never again be what they once were.

But I would pick Robinson, even at the age of 32. And if only for the try he scored last week against Llanelli Scarlets, when the game was already won.

True, he has not categorically made himself available for England again. But he has dithered long enough since the start of this season to make it worth the while, surely, of someone in the England set-up to put the question to him. The need to find players who can beat opponents one-on-one is that pressing.

Robinson has always been unconventional, whether in league with Wigan, or in union with Bath and Sale. In an age when England's commitment to collision and contact was absolute and successful, he was a dodger. He plays on with feet and brain and appetite intact because he has not been battered to a standstill.

Of course, life became difficult for him. The days when he could be positioned in Paris on the wide blind-side of a set-piece scrummage, be given quick ball and licence to go - and leave the France defence for dead - were bound to be numbered. We hardly need reminding that defences grew meaner and that all his stop-start, two-feet-in-the-air preludes to sidestepping attracted the attention of hitmen whose very employment depended on upping their tackle count.

So, Robinson had to introduce caution, or common sense, into his game. Goodness, he had to learn how to kick. And then he was injured. And his confidence suffered, especially on the Lions tour of 2005. He called it a day at international level.

But the game has come, or is coming, back round to encouraging - insisting on - the making of space rather than contact. Robinson is still the sharpest operator in the suddenly glam world of the non-contact area. There is an English influence at Sale, after all, and the prospect of raised spirits across a gloomy land.