Healey working hard for his place

'But the first time I looked at him, I saw a very motivated and very determined athlete. We worked on increasing the stability of the knee joint by increasing the neurological responses of the muscles.'

'Austin's attitude was that he had nothing to lose. After one week he knew this was the right place to be and by the end of week two I knew he had a 70 per cent chance of making the World Cup.

'At the end of the month, that chance had gone up to 90 per cent. His focus on executing each knee movement correctly was outstanding.'

With time running out, Healey can only hope, suspecting that Andy Gomarsall may be ahead of him. Against France at Twickenham on Saturday - England's last match before the World Cup - there will be no opportunity to give him another run, with Kyran Bracken and Matt Dawson straining at the leash for their first match in 11 weeks.

Clive Woodward names his final 30 on Monday and he must already know the identity of at least 28 of them. Barring any mishaps of the sort which befell Iain Balshaw in Marseille, Dan Luger and James Simpson-Daniel will surely book their places.

If, as he has hinted, Woodward takes only the three centres, then he will have to rely on Jonny Wilkinson playing there in the event of an emergency.

The balance of the squad rests on whether England's head coach takes a fifth prop, as he almost certainly will, at the expense of a sixth back row player.

The risk of injury is always greater in the back row, but that has to be weighed against the chance of falling foul of the new front-row substitution law which demands sufficient reserves to avoid the farce of uncontested scrums.

Woodward has insisted on picking specialists as opposed to utility players which, unless he changes his mind, means Healey being judged as a scrum half against Gomarsall. The toughest choice is in the back row, where Martin Corry's late charge has thrown the final berth into doubt.