Time for England to weather the Scots storm

Any rearranged games will affect the domestic programme in England with the new Zurich Championship and European Cup being the prime candidates to suffer, although Wales and British Lions coach Graham Henry will be equally distraught at this enforced reshuffling of fixtures.

Henry's problem is that many of his potential Lions squad will be knocking "seven bells" out of each other shortly before departing for the tour of Australia on 1 June, which is not what he wants.

It also stretches the domestic season to roughly 10 months which is ludicrous, when all we hear from the southern hemisphere is concerns about the "burnout" of their players and their season is only eight months long - enough said!

Wales will no doubt be relieved that the fixture with Ireland has been postponed as the Irish have not lost in Cardiff since 1983 and by their own admission, the Welsh are not playing well enough to reverse that trend.

A fortnight ago Wales were very clearly in the driving seat against Scotland at Murrayfield but managed to commit sporting suicide by gifting the Scots the opportunity to draw the game, which Scotland gratefully accepted.

This has given rise to great optimism in the Scotland camp, yet there is little substance to Scotland's new-found self-belief. Drawing with a below-par Wales team on your home patch is not necessarily something to become hysterical about, although Scotland's coach and three-times Lions coach Ian McGeechan will be building on every grain of momentum that was achieved in that remarkable comeback.

The Scots' record at Twickenham is nothing to shout about, but they will descend on the capital in their droves for a repeat of last season's victory over England, a match played in atrocious conditions at Murrayfield. The defeat deprived England of a Grand Slam.

Scotland are fit, well organised and pose a formidable threat in the line-out in the shape of Scott Murray.

Murray and his fellow-Scots will look to disrupt England again at the setpieces and with indifferent weather forecast for the weekend, it will provide the acid test for this England team who have flourished in dry conditions but have yet to endure a dogfight in the wet.

While England are totally committed to perfecting their wide game, they are also aware that the weather may well be their toughest opponent.

Dick Best is the London Irish director of rugby and a former Grand Slam-winning England coach.