England's Rugby World Cup Squad

Brian Ashton made his announcement today as to which of the players have made it to the final 30-man squad. I wonder whether the loss to France over the weekend had anything to do with some of them being dropped. In any event, the final 30 are

Forwards
Steve Borthwick (Bath Rugby)
George Chuter (Leicester Tigers)
Martin Corry (Leicester Tigers)
Lawrence Dallaglio (London Wasps)
Nick Easter (NEC Harlequins)
Perry Freshwater (Perpignan)
Ben Kay (Leicester Tigers)
Lee Mears (Bath Rugby)
Lewis Moody (Leicester Tigers)
Tom Rees (London Wasps)
Mark Regan (Bristol Rugby)
Simon Shaw (London Wasps)
Andrew Sheridan (Sale Sharks)
Matt Stevens (Bath Rugby)
Phil Vickery (London Wasps - capt)
Joe Worsley (London Wasps)

Backs (14)
Olly Barkley (Bath Rugby)
Mike Catt (London Irish)
Mark Cueto (Sale Sharks)
Andrew Farrell (Saracens)
Andrew Gomarsall (NEC Harlequins)
Dan Hipkiss (Leicester Tigers)
Josh Lewsey (London Wasps)
Jamie Noon (Newcastle Falcons)
Shaun Perry (Bristol Rugby)
Peter Richards (London Irish)
Jason Robinson (Unattached)
Paul Sackey (London Wasps)
Mathew Tait (Newcastle Falcons)
Jonny Wilkinson (Newcastle Falcons)

Of the players selected, the once I fancy most (in no order of preference) are Jonny Wilkinson, Matthew Tait, Jamie Noon, Mark Cueto and Olly Barkley. Click on the hyperlinked names and you'll see more about who they are. Like most of us, the boys don't photograph very well. In fact, these are some of the worst pictures I've seen of them. I'll see what I can do about finding some more flattering ones of these boys to post for a future blog entry.

In the meantime, for those of you who haven't seen it already, the team kit for RWC 2007 looks like this:

Kit on or kit off, they're a wet dream come true. Perhaps not these two specifically but Mark Cueton, Olly Barkley and Jonny Wilkinson certainly do it for me.