BAGSHOT, 17 March 2004 — England forwards coach Andy Robinson insists the world champions’ lineout, which collapsed against Ireland, would be in full working order come the visit of Wales to Twickenham on Saturday.

“We don’t have a bad lineout. We just had a lineout that went wrong,” Robinson told reporters at England’s training base yesterday.

Ireland’s 19-13 victory in the last round of Six Nations matches, which ended England’s 22 Test match unbeaten run at Twickenham, was built upon their lineout dominance.

Winning the lineout is critical if a side are to secure good quality possession. But Ireland locks Malcolm O’Kelly and Paul O’Connell disrupted England at the set-piece to such an extent that World Cup-winning hooker Steve Thompson was replaced in the second half.

Such was the waywardness of Thompson’s throwing-in to the lineout that jokes about him ‘feeling the cold because he could not find his jumpers’ emerged after Six Nations kings England’s defeat.

“We made many errors at the lineout,” Robinson said. “We lost our complete composure there.

“But we’ve gone back to the basics in terms of the lifting, and making sure we get the jumper at maximum at height.”

However, Robinson added securing the ball was only half the story. “We are looking very much at ball usage and what we are going to do off it as opposed to actually looking at the ball-winning.

“The guys are very down about what happened last week, they are proud people,” former England and British and Irish Lions flanker Robinson explained. “When you look at the lineout we had in the first two games it went well and the focus is to put it right again.”

England’s lineout should be boosted by the return of Danny Grewcock. The Bath lock missed the Ireland match with an Achilles’ tendon injury and has now replaced club-mate Steve Borthwick.

But Grewcock stressed: “It wasn’t a case of one individual performing badly. We need to improve as a group at the lineout.”

England head coach Clive Woodward defended his decision to leave Neil Back out of his matchday 22 with the veteran flanker having announced he would be retiring from Test rugby after the Six Nations.

Back said he expected to be omitted because he made himself unavailable for the summer tour of New Zealand and Australia but Woodward insisted the decision had been on form grounds alone.

Murphy Back for Ireland

In Dublin, Geordan Murphy returns to the Ireland team for the first time since breaking a leg against Scotland last September for the Six Nations Championship match against Italy at Lansdowne Road on Saturday.

The Leicester club player wins his 21st cap on the left wing in place of Tyrone Howe.

It is the only change to the team, which defeated England 19-13 at Twickenham.

“Geordan has come through three games for Leicester and has done extremely well,” said coach Eddie O’Sullivan.

“He has also been going full steam in training and has looked very impressive. He is too good a player to leave on the tramlines.”