Tired Tindall bored of criticism

Mike Tindall has hit out at criticism surrounding his centre partnership with Jamie Noon.

World Cup winner Mike Tindall has hit out at the increasing criticism surrounding his centre partnership with Jamie Noon.

The duo started both of England's crunch autumn clashes with Australia and New Zealand, failing to inspire in either match as Andy Robinson's men became heavily reliant on their domineering pack.

Their lack of creativity was fiercely highlighted as England's backline failed to function against the 13 men of the All Blacks, with neither player showing the individual ability to carve open the opposition defence with a sharp step or change of direction.

However, both Noon and Tindall have played a big part in the hostile defensive base that Robinson has developed, and they will now look to lead the attack again when Wales arrive at Twickenham, with the latter insisting that the partnership is only going to get better.

"Trying to get to know each other and learning about how each other plays is a big thing. People think it falls into place quickly and it doesn't," said Tindall.

"We are still feeling each other out. We are not at the stage where we know immediately what each other will do. But that just comes with playing, with game time, and hopefully the more we play the quicker that will come.

"Will Greenwood and I (England's World Cup-winning partnership) had probably only got to the stage where we knew each other instinctively at about the time our England partnership ended.

"We need to step up two or three notches this game and then keep building every game. If we can get our attacking game to where our defensive game is, we will have a pretty complete team.

"My job is just to get Noonie the ball as quickly as I can because he is a great attacker.

"And with all the attacking forces we have out in the backs, we want to make best use of them."

Plenty of alternative options have been suggested to the Tindall/Noon conundrum, with Josh Lewsey a popular choice to slot into Tindall's role.

Lewsey's Wasps teammate Stuart Abbott, Tindall's club colleague James Simpson-Daniel and Bath's Olly Barkley have also been thrown into the hat, but the powerful Gloucester centre refuses to let the pressure get to him.

"As long as you have got self-belief, your confidence will feed off that.

"If you can't take criticism and you can't learn to ignore things that you don't need to pay attention to, you will always let it beat you down and get to you.

"I want to go out there and enjoy it, play as well as I possibly can and hopefully read some good words about me on Sunday morning."