Hope springs eternal for a jaded England fan

 Since that glorious morning almost ten years ago I have become sadly used to disappointment. As an England fan I know I am not alone in that. However today, for the first time in nearly a decade, the day before we are due to play France at Twickenham, I am daring to hope. 

I'll be honest and say that I wasn't one of Stuart Lancaster's biggest fans when the job of manager became vacant after Martin Johnson resigned. I wanted Jim Mallinder to get the job, for no real reason other than we were at the same school. In fact my sister went out with his brother, and that was good enough for me. If you're interested it was the same school Brian Moore went to as well. So when Lancaster was appointed I didn't hold out much hope. Of course I have come around to his way of doing things. The amazing, rapidly becoming legendary, game against New Zealand was the clear turning point for me. Up until then nothing had really changed except the players. We still didn't quite manage to play to the level of potential we clearly had. So when we destroyed the All Blacks at what was in fact their own game I was stunned. I might just have misjudged Lancaster after all. But then maybe not. We'd won the odd game before and nothing had really changed.

The opening game of this year's six nations against Scotland was an eye opener for me. We finally did what I had been taught at school all those years ago. Run flat, commit the defender and offload in the tackle to keep the ball moving. Ok it didn't always work, and even I, the most committed of England supporters couldn't help but admire Hogg's beautiful break when we got it wrong. France and Wales both underperformed in a big way and that only left Ireland as the big threat, and we had to play them away from home. But play them we did, and beat them we did. Scotland played a blinder and ended Italy's run of success while France and Wales competed for the title of most mediocre team in the tournament. All of a sudden we were at the top of the table. We were the only team who could possibly win the grand slam, and despite all the claims to the contrary we were in fact now the clear favourites for the title, and it was completely justified. It feels like a very odd place to be.

We have a flyhalf that almost never seems to miss his kicks and fronts up on the field as only the son of Andy “Man of Steel” Farrell could. We have a pack that not only performs consistently in the set pieces, but is mobile and dominant in the breakdown. We have a back three that seem to have hands made of fly paper, something we haven't seen in England since the days of Josh “Never drops the ball” Lewsey. And we have a centre pairing that is strong and powerful as well as precise and nimble. We have a scrum half that has flair in spades and to top it all we have real competition for almost every place in the team. Though of course as a Wasp I'd like to see a bit more pace from the wings, but you can't have everything.

Finally we have a team that might just be able to do something special. Of course now I've said that we'll probably get rolled over by a French team that has absolutely nothing to lose. After all it happened to New Zealand a little while ago.