Catt: England can still call me

Yet what about the Catt option? As Robinson himself said this week, the Wales match is not going to be a place for the faint-hearted and, should England want an experienced hand on the tiller for what is bound to be only a short-term job, who better than Catt?

He won his last international cap only last summer and, a little under 15 months ago, he was coming on at half-time in a World Cup quarter-final - against Wales, too - to turn around a match that not even Wilkinson had seemed capable of preventing from slipping away.

Catt, of course, then started the semi-final against France, in which he also played superbly, before coming on as a replacement in the final and - at the end - joyfully hoofing the ball into the Sydney night sky in the last play of the epic 20-17 victory over Australia.

Robinson's England may be determined to move on into a new era, but at Vicarage Road on Sunday there will be a whole host of Irish fans, at least, hoping to see Catt at his world-class best.

"I'm thoroughly enjoying my rugby at Irish," added Catt. "Although the season so far has been an intensely frustrating one. We've had terrible disruption with injuries, but we've still been losing games that we should have won. We've not scored the tries that we should have, but we've got the players to do that and we're all gearing ourselves up for Sunday.

"Going out of the European Challenge Cup so narrowly to Pau was part of what was an extremely disappointing few weeks around the Christmas and New Year period, but we've had the past three weeks off because of our Europe exit - and it's meant that we've been able to train like it was pre-season again and also get some of our injured players back on their feet.

"We've got Scott Staniforth and Geoff Appleford back behind the scrum, and also Neal Hatley is returning to what is at last a full-strength pack. But we must hit the ground running on Sunday because Saracens, like us, need to win this game to keep their season going.

"One of our goals as a club this year is to get into the Heineken Cup, and one of the best ways of doing that is to win the Powergen Cup."

If they are to achieve it, Catt must play a major part. But Irish also look to their star signing to play an equally influential part off the pitch. "Someone like Mike Catt has also been brought to the club to help our development process," said managing director Conor O'Shea, the former Ireland full-back.

"It's been very educational for our younger players to look at Mike, who is 33 and has won everything there is to win in the game, and see his incredible work ethic and the fact that he's invariably the last player to leave the training field.

"He's done it all, so why does he still bother? Well, that's the reason he has achieved so much and for our young guys like Delon Armitage, who played for England Under 21's last year and is in the team to play Saracens on Sunday, it has been inspirational having Catty around to work with. You can't put a price on what he can teach these young guys.

"We are passionate about creating the right opportunities here for our younger players to come through. Increasing salary budgets would simply lead to the top players getting bigger wages, and won't strengthen squads, so developing a real sense of club in which players like Armitage, Nick Kennedy and Nils Mordt are brought through is a far more fulfilling way of making progress."