English rugby doing just swell

If you've been keeping an eye on Zurich Premiership games you'll have noticed that crowd numbers have been very healthy and apart from the odd blowout here and there, most teams have been fairly evenly matched.

The exceptions would be Harlequins, Leeds, Northampton, Bath and Wasps who've been sputtering along in the first few weeks.

And by and large English teams have been acquitting themselves well so far in the Heineken Cup competition, so the Rugby Football Union would have to be relatively pleased with the way things are going at the moment.

Sure, England stumbled against a fired up Ireland last month, but that was probably more of an aberration than anything else, at least that's what coach Clive Woodward and his staff would like to think and by the end of the fall tests we'll know if that's right or not.

The proof will come when England lines up against World Champions Australia and then South Africa. The English vanquished both teams a year ago, but this time things might be a little different.

The Wallabies have had a pretty good run since their loss at Twickenham last year dropping only two internationals along the way, one to the British and Irish Lions this past summer and the other to the Springboks in the Tri-nations series.

South Africa, as has become the norm recently, has had a rollercoaster twelve months since their last visit to Twickers. The Boks split their series with France, won one and tied one against Australia, but lost both rubbers to New Zealand.

England on the other hand was on a tear until they ran into an Irish buzzsaw at Lansdowne Road, so all things being equal it looks as though the test against Australia could go either way, while the English, depending on that result, should start slight favorites against South Africa.

In between those two clashes is an international against Romania which will be nothing more than an opportunity for the English to go in for a tune up.

In a sense England can almost be likened to the New York Yankees, well, at a stretch anyway. The Yankees went into this year's World Series as the three-time defending champs, but things were a little different when the upstart Arizona Diamondbacks threw out a serious challenge to New York's supremacy.

It has been quite some time, almost eons really, since England went into consecutive tests against southern hemisphere teams with as good a chance of winning as they have this year and that must surely put a smile on the faces of Woodward and co.

So, yep, the state of rugby in England is just swell thank you, at least for the time being.