Tait awaits call as Robinson tempted by teen spirit

With a week to go before England open their campaign in the Six Nations Championship, a host of questions remain unanswered, notably one concerning a Newcastle teenager of mouth-watering potential. Chris Hewett looks for answers

When Kyran Bracken, fresh out of university and still saddled with a bouffant hairdo that made him look like the poet Shelley and had opposition forwards licking their lips at the prospect of an easy kill, first turned out for Bristol against Bath on West Country derby day, he quickly found himself on the wrong end of some rough treatment and alerted the referee to his sorry plight. Big mistake. Almost before he had finished complaining, the young scrum-half heard a voice - or rather, a growl - in his ear and, amid a stream of four-lettered insults, just about managed to pick out the following words: "You're not playing student rugby now, son."

When Kyran Bracken, fresh out of university and still saddled with a bouffant hairdo that made him look like the poet Shelley and had opposition forwards licking their lips at the prospect of an easy kill, first turned out for Bristol against Bath on West Country derby day, he quickly found himself on the wrong end of some rough treatment and alerted the referee to his sorry plight. Big mistake. Almost before he had finished complaining, the young scrum-half heard a voice - or rather, a growl - in his ear and, amid a stream of four-lettered insults, just about managed to pick out the following words: "You're not playing student rugby now, son."

The bearer of these tidings was a mean-eyed flanker by the name of Andy Robinson who, more than a decade on, is about to embark on his first Six Nations Championship as England's head coach. If he took a dim view of the younger generation in his playing days, he is a very different animal now. Robinson has earned himself a reputation for throwing precocious sporting infants into a grown-up's world populated by hitmen and con-artists of every hue - during his last season of club coaching at Bath, in 1999-2000, his side featured Iain Balshaw, Mike Tindall and Steve Borthwick, all of them blooded as teenagers - and can often be heard extolling the virtues of bold selection as he cadges one last cider at the clubhouse bar.

A week ahead of England's first visit to Cardiff since the boundless triumphs of 2003, the question is this: will Robinson select boldly this weekend, now he has reached the first fork in the red rose road? Or to put it another way, will he pick Mathew Tait of Newcastle, sweet 18 and never been thumped, in a new midfield? Robinson likes Tait. He likes him a lot. In fact, he suspects he is the best thing produced by England since Martin Johnson or Magna Carta, whichever came second. But is he brave enough to name the prodigy in his starting line-up for a match in the world champions' least favourite city, in front of their least favourite audience, against their least favourite opponents - Wales, the one team against whom defeat is unimaginable, as opposed to merely unpalatable?

Robinson yearns to be seen to be his own man, and to be judged by his own standards. He has put distance between himself and the regime of Sir Clive Woodward, in which he served as high chamberlain; witness his determinedly diplomatic approach to relations with the Premiership directors of rugby, and the innovatory training get-together with the Leeds Rhinos rugby league team. Indeed, he blew his own trumpet immediately, and at Louis Armstrong volume, by telling Matt Dawson where to get off during the now infamous spat over the scrum-half's professional priorities, biased as they were towards talking about sport rather than playing it. No fair-minded individual could accuse the new coach of playing all his tunes from Woodward's sheet music.

But this match against Wales, and the next two against France at Twickenham and Ireland in Dublin, are entirely different to those autumn meetings with South Africa and Australia, for a number of reasons. Reason one: this is tournament rugby, with a big fat gong on offer come the end of March. Reason two: the Robinson honeymoon is over, just as Woodward's honeymoon ended after the autumn internationals in 1997. Reason three: the likes of France, Ireland and, in particular, Wales, are local rivals, too geographically close to England for defeat not to hurt.

And the fourth reason? Reason four is the most important of all, because it deals with coach's ambitions for his team in terms of the next World Cup, which is all that really matters in this day and age. This is the start of the 2007 cycle, the culmination of which will say everything about the Robinson era. If the coach has any sense - and his rugby instincts are all that they should be, to judge by his track record of tangible achievement - he will already have one eye on events in France some two and a half years hence. Which should mean only one thing, in terms of a player like Tait. Pick him, and pick him now.

Apart from anything else, the teenager is playing better than any outside-centre in the country. He is quicker than he looks, harder than he lets on and more confident than anyone of his age has a right to be. He can drift off an opponent without that opponent noticing, thereby giving himself the priceless choice of taking a pass early or late. His try against Perpignan in the Heineken Cup last October was a gem; his score against Sale in the Premiership earlier this month was both jaw-dropping and, in Jason Robinson's case, jaw-rearranging.

If Andy Robinson is really courageous, he will ask Olly Barkley to partner Tait in midfield. Jamie Noon, the teenager's regular partner at Newcastle, is whispered to be the front-runner, while Ollie Smith of Leicester has his supporters, but neither possesses the kicking game to play a genuine second five-eighth role à la Matt Giteau of Australia or Damien Traille of France - or, come to that, Gavin Henson of Wales. Charlie Hodgson will be under a whole heap of pressure at outside-half next Saturday, especially if the Welsh pick the ultra-rapid Richie Pugh on their open-side flank. A non-kicker at inside-centre will be about as useful as a chocolate teapot; a non-kicker who attempts to develop a kicking game on the hoof out of sheer panic will be more useless still.

A little over 20 years ago, England picked a side almost as exciting as Robinson might pick now. Nigel Melville and Stuart Barnes, nobody's fools, were granted debuts at half-back, Rob Lozowski took his bow in the centre, Gareth Chilcott and Nigel Redman made their first appearances at prop and lock respectively. Only two of the team, John Carleton on the wing and Gary Pearce in the front row, were in double figures on the cap front. This was England's brave new world, and it lasted precisely 80 minutes. Why? Because they were beaten 19-3 by a Wallaby side who, it was patently obvious to anyone with eyes to see, were one of the great teams in rugby history. When England played Romania a couple of months later, only Pearce, John Hall, Rory Underwood and Nick Stringer were still in situ.

There was not much to be said for selectorial cowardice then - England subsequently lost 13 times in 20 outings - and there would be even less to say for it now that the dynamics of the international game are driven by World Cup imperatives. Robinson already has the backbone of his 2007 side in place - a good 60 per cent of next weekend's side will probably be on active duty on the far side of the Channel when the time comes - so there is little logic in declining to flesh it out now.

He will surely stick with the tight five that performed so well during the autumn - any notion of reinstating Ben Kay at lock ahead of Steve Borthwick must have diminished when the latter turned in a world-class Heineken Cup performance for Bath against Leinster three weeks ago - and there is no obvious reason why Andy Hazell of Gloucester, a specialist breakaway, should not fill the back-row vacancy against a Welsh pack short on muscle but long on pace. That would allow Joe Worsley the move to No 8 he has craved since the year dot. Given half a chance in his favourite position, he would be perfectly motivated to play the game of his life.

Scrum-half? Harry Ellis deserves his chance. He may be a stroppy little so-and-so - his violent excesses for Leicester against Biarritz a few Sundays back suggested he had spent precious few of his spare Sabbaths in church - but he has some electricity about him. Dawson, an old head on elderly legs, is in excellent form for Wasps, and would provide a reassuring degree of cover on the bench. Hodgson is a certainty at outside-half, while the back three - Josh Lewsey, Mark Cueto and Jason Robinson - select themselves.

Easy, eh? Not if you are paid to pick the side, rather than pontificate about it. Robinson might be sorely tempted to pick his biggest pack - Kay rather than Borthwick, Hugh Vyvyan rather than Hazell - and rehabilitate Dawson at half-back while plumping for the most experienced midfield available to him, which would mean Henry Paul at inside-centre and either Noon or Smith outside him. He should resist those temptations and go for broke. He played his rugby that way for more than a decade. Why go all conservative on us now?

Ready To Fly Falcons Prodigy Set To Be The Centre Of Attention

The trouble with being the talk of the town is that nothing is cheaper than talk. Ask Clive Stuart-Smith, the young scrum-half widely considered to be the dog's unmentionables in that most troublesome of positions for England, whose stock has fallen so low he cannot get a Premiership start for Worcester. Ask Alex Sanderson, the flanker from Chester, who attracted so much interest during his teenage years that it was scarcely possible for him to meet expectations once he reached adulthood. Sure enough, he has never come close to establishing himself at international level.

These players were spotted, courted and garlanded by the very best judges - the judges who now put Mathew Tait in a category of his own. Too much too soon? People who work closely with the 18-year-old centre - Tait will be 19 next Sunday, the day after England's match with Wales in Cardiff, for which he is being considered at outside-centre - are more than a little fearful. Rob Andrew, his director of rugby at Newcastle, would certainly prefer him to remain anonymous for a while longer, but Tait is so far ahead of his peer group (the considered view of Brian Ashton, the manager of the national academy), that he is about as inconspicuous as Michelangelo on a Wimpey Homes building site.

Tait hails from Wolsingham, a few miles south of the Northumberland National Park, and was educated at Barnard Castle School, where Andrew first announced himself as a player of Test potential. His father is a vet, his mother does the accounts for the practice. Neither parent set the Tyne alight with their sporting prowess, but Tait took to rugby like a duck to water, playing for England Under-16s within a year of being spotted in a junior section session at Newcastle. As Jonny Wilkinson, his illustrious clubmate, acknowledged this week, the boy is a natural. And according to the cognoscenti at Kingston Park, he has a kid brother who is shaping up every bit as well.

And yet, Tait has played only 10 Premiership matches for the Falcons, plus a handful of Heineken Cup games. Had Mark Mayerhofler, the former All Black centre, not pranged himself when he did by breaking a leg, the teenager might have struggled to break into a back division containing Matthew Burke, Tom May, Michael Stephenson and Jamie Noon. His lack of senior rugby is an advantage in the sense that he is a mystery to opponents denied the usual preparatory diet of video analysis. There again, there are players who will never come within a million miles of a Test cap who know more about the realities of the union game at the top level.

All that can be said on Tait's behalf is that he has coped easily, and hugely profitably, with every step up in class. Not once has he looked out of place, or given the slightest indication of wilting in the temperatures generated inside the hothouses of Premiership and European rugby. If he plays at the Millennium Stadium a week today, will he find the heat unbearable? Neither he, nor we, will know unless he is given a run.