RUGBY UNION: Camera-shy England

Bath may be popular with tourists but the Georgian city will be purdah for England from Wednesday, when they make it their base before Saturday's match against Wales at Cardiff Arms Park.

Jack Rowell, the England manager, announced yesterday that the training session in Roehampton would be the last before prying eyes until the final, low-intensity one in Cardiff on Friday morning.

England have for some years practised in private on pre-Test Thursdays but been open to the world on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Rowell was disconcerted at the size and, in one case, identity of the spectating turn-out at the Wednesday session at Richmond before the France match. Not that the presence of a French television crew - and whatever they may have divulged - made much difference to the French team, who still lost 31-10.

"I noticed swarms of people there, including French TV," Rowell said yesterday. "I'm not being over-sensitive about it, but filming and analysing what we do in our major practices could be very useful to the competition. Wales is very close to England.''

England did something similar in Sydney in 1991 before they played Australia, when they trained under armed guard in an army base and kept their secrets on the Friday as well. They lost by 41-15, a record England Test defeat.

A second X-ray examination having revealed a broken rib, Mike Hall is in grave doubt for Saturday's match and would be replaced in the Welsh centre by the 21-year-old Mark Taylor, displaced in the original selection by the fit-again Nigel Davies. Hall was restricted to swimming during Wales's training weekend in Cardiff. "I think I could play, but it would hurt like hell," he said.

England have minor injury anxieties after their own weekend get-together. With Mike Catt and Dean Richards playing for their clubs and Ben Clarke injured, only 12 of the team trained on Saturday.

Clarke also missed yesterday's session, and Tony Underwood and Jeremy Guscott were early finishers. Clarke was protecting an ankle strain; Underwood jarred the thumb that forced him off against Canada, and Guscott hurt his back against France.

Northampton lose their grip,

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