Healey Admits World Cup Hopes Are Fast Disappearing

The wealth of talent vying for a place in England's World Cup squad was underlined last night when Austin Healey confessed he is "almost resigned" to missing the cut when Clive Woodward announces his final 30 on September 8.

The England rugby union head coach made it clear yesterday that the 29-year-old would be considered only as a specialist scrum-half rather than as a utility back and the Leicester player, who has not played a competitive game since undergoing a knee operation four months ago, fears the worst unless he can produce a sparkling display in England's warm-up Tests this month.

"Without doubt I'm an outsider to go to the World Cup," said Healey, well aware that Woodward is determined not to pick on reputation or sentiment. "I need to have some outstanding performances, if given the opportunity, to stand the remotest chance of going. I've almost resigned myself to that fact.

"There are so many good players among the 43 players in the preliminary squad that there's no room for utility. You have to be very good in the position you're going for and there are three other exceptional scrum-halves. I really do have to play as well as possible."

Healey's window of opportunity is extremely narrow, with Woodward likely to start him against either Wales in Cardiff on August 23 or against France in Marseille a week later. Even if Healey, who has played in every position behind the scrum for England at some stage, does play well he has far less recent international experience at scrum-half than his three rivals, Matt Dawson, Kyran Bracken and Andy Gomarsall.

"If I get selected I'll be amazed and overjoyed," said Healey. "If I don't I'll go back to Leicester, carry on and hope for a late call-up. I don't know if apprehensive is the right word but I am concerned. As people have said in the past, if you're in the last-chance saloon you have to make the most of it. I'm outside the last-chance saloon on my horse at the minute."

Healey's absence would certainly disappoint the whole of Australia, eagerly looking forward to renewing acquaintance with the maverick Leicester player after his outspoken comments on the 2001 Lions tour. He has not started a Test for England for 17 months, however, and injury has seriously curtailed his career in the past year.

Achilles trouble meant he started on the bench in the autumn Tests at Twickenham and soon after his return he damaged knee ligaments in the Heineken Cup quarter- final defeat to Munster in April. He underwent an immediate operation and travelled to the United States in June to seek help from the renowned specialist Bill Knowles, responsible for getting any number of leading American athletes back on their feet.

Healey subsequently spent several weeks with his England team-mate Charlie Hodgson in a log cabin in New Hampshire - "It's strange when all you can see are trees and bears" - and was required, among other things, to spend time sitting in a river to speed up his recovery. Time is running out, though, and provisional plans for himself and his Leicester team-mate Lewis Moody to play in the Middlesex Sevens next week have been abandoned.

All England's players were released from their camp in Surrey last night and will reassemble for a full week's training in advance of the Wales game. So far Woodward is confident his squad's period of physical conditioning has gone well and he also had a word for opposing coaches and players who have quietly suggested England are an elderly, predictable side. "They even said I was old which was a bit much. It would grate if I thought it was true but I don't think England are predictable."