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Ashton: speaks to Stuart Barnes

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The Rugby Club gave England coach Brian Ashton the right to reply after Stuart Barnes and Dewi Morris criticised some aspects of his latest squad selection.

Stuart and Dewi attended Ashton's press conference earlier this week as the England boss named a 32-man training squad ahead of the Six Nations opener against Wales at Twickenham on February 2.

The Sky Sports pundits questioned both his personnel and his tactics, but Ashton spoke to Stuart after the press conference and insisted he was happy with his squad and hoped it signalled a bright future for English rugby.

Here, we look at Stuart and Dewi's three main concerns as well as the England coach's responses to them:

Question One: Are England simply relying on the same old faces?

DEWI MORRIS: He's gone with the dinosaurs again. I'm very disappointed because yet again it's exactly the same. The guys you see week in week out on form are mainly in the Saxons squad and their guys that just plod along sometimes are in the main squad.

It doesn't make sense to me. You're going back to type and going back to what happened in the World Cup. They did brilliantly to get as far as they did, but they were never going to win it playing that style of rugby. For me, this squad isn't going to change that style of rugby.

BRIAN ASHTON: In my mind it's a combination of continuity and starting again. I think it was important in the short term to make sure we got some stability and continuity from the World Cup.

I also think it was important in the front-five area that we've still got the best players in the squad irrespective of their age. And that's good news because we've now got the core foundation there.

But we have got other areas there where we suddenly have a plethora of players playing to international standard, for example at 10 and on the wing,

England haven't had that for a long time and if there is such a thing as luxury at international level, then England have got the luxury of looking at players that are a little bit younger and are going to be around for the next four or five years.

Question Two: Should Phil Vickery still be captain?

STUART BARNES: Just because Ashton has a good relationship with Phil Vickery, that's not any reason why he should be captain when Matt Stevens is playing so well. Stevens had a fine World Cup, while Vickery is in and out with injuries.

He's acting on loyalty and loyalty is a great thing to have as a player, but sometimes if you're too loyal in rugby selection, it ends up killing you.

BRIAN ASHTON: I'm happy with my decision and I agree loyalty can sometimes be a weakness. But I don't think it's a weakness in this case.

I saw Vickery play when he came back from the World Cup and he played well in some of the Heineken Cup games and I'm sure that when he's back fully fit again he's still good enough to start the Six Nations games.

He's a guy that commands a massive amount of respect from other players and the team and for him to lead the side out onto the field is going to be quite important against Wales.

Question Three: Are England going to stick to the same old 'suffocating' style?

DEWI MORRIS: The biggest worry to me is that England are going to play the same way. I know there's not that much preparation time before the first game against Wales, but surely if you had a group of youngsters that would be great. You could just say 'here's some basics, go and use your skills'.

I can only see England trying to suffocate the ball and trying to suffocate Wales, rather than using the wide expanses of Twickenham to bring some youthful exuberance on there to score some scintillating tries. I need to pick my words carefully, but I think the English public wouldn't mind watching that game and losing narrowly with that kind of performance.

With this squad, I don't think we'll lose because Wales won't see the ball. But what is that going to tell us about the development of the English game four years before a World Cup? Absolutely nothing.

Are the backs going to see the ball? Probably after about 60 minutes when the forwards have finished with it. I'm not happy.

BRIAN ASHTON: England fans can expect more dynamism in our play and a little bit more freedom of thought in term so what's going on in front of them. We'll be prepared to give things a bit more of a go.

In the World Cup we played in a certain way to get as far as we did, but now we've got to start playing differently. We need to cause more problems by moving the game around the field.

They need to be looking at what's in front of them. We need to be attacking space and not bodies. And all those come under the same umbrella of a more dynamic, flexible movement based game.