The Weekend has Landed!!!

I cant see any upsets in these games, with the Welsh too good to slip up against an Italian side that have failed to build on their impressive previous tournament performances, and Ireland simply looking on fire under the inspirational leadership of O'Driscoll. Still you never know, and if the Scots can keep it tight early doors against the men in green they might start to feel the pressure as they did against England last time out, although I feel the Irish will have a much more expansive game plan in mind this time out.

As for England, well we take on the mercurial French on Sunday afternoon at 3pm, and Martin Johnson, and the nation as a whole, will be hoping for an improvement.

After the brave and commendable performance from our boys against the Welsh, the loss against the Irish (despite the score line) left an incredibly bitter taste in my mouth. Not because we didn't defend well, and not because you could question the commitment of the players, but simply because it seemed as if we had run out of ideas.

Against the red shirted lads from the valleys we showed that we can mix it up with the best of them in the contact area and in terms of aggression, and I was hoping to see the progression of that against O'Driscoll's men, but instead we seemed to have taken a step back. So what have the players got left to pull out of the bag this afternoon?

Well first up they need to show a response to all of these stupid yellow cards. In rugby you are going to concede penalties when you play as hard as we need to and try and spoil things, but there is no excuse for the amount of times we were caught for petulant little acts in the last game. Vickery should have known better, especially after the ref had warned him the ruck before, and as for Danny Care, well if your going to see yellow and get ten minutes in the bin, I'd rather it was for a meaty right hook than for a push in the back that wouldn't have been out of place if it was carried out by a crazed octogenarian in the Boxing day sales!

There has been such a furore about the discipline situation that anyone who does get a card in this game will not just have to face the wrath of Johnno in the stands (You never saw him that angry when he played!) but vilification in the press, and deservedly so.

I think its time for a lot of these England players to stand up and be counted, there manager is getting a lot of stick, but at the end of the day, when you get on the pitch and the whistle goes, you have no one else to blame for your shortcomings apart from yourself, and its time for them to man up and take some responsibility for their actions.

I think we will see an improved performance from the boys, and I expect you will see a lot of ball being run up the middle through Tindall, with our back row looking to play off this, but watch out for the French's very own battering ram Bastereud who will be targeting our own 10-12 channel of Flood and Flutey (although you will probably see Worsley in at 10 on defensive scrums to counter this tactic) and with a lot of questions marks being raised over these two's defensive game, it will be interesting to see how they respond

You never know with the French what side will turn up, will it be their mercurial side that saw them end the dreams of a Welsh Grand Slam, or the team that was found lacking against the Irish?

As for the footy, well Villa will look to bounce back from their poor run of form recently against a struggling Tottenham at Villa Park on Sunday, and they should be nice and refreshed after their mid season break away in Dubai. I'm hoping MON can get his boys to turn it around, and I think they will put in a real performance against our 'Arry's rather lacklustre but talented Spurs side.

In the Championship the Blues and Wolves are both in action tomorrow afternoon (you can follow all the action on our live blog direct form the grounds on this website) as they take on Doncaster and Charlton respectively. Both teams will be looking to increase the 4 point gap on third place Reading, as while the Royals are in their own slump at the moment, they are too good to keep losing plus they still have two games in hand, and with everyone seemingly throwing away points at the top of the table the bigger the advantage the two West Midlands team can build now, the better their fans will be able to sleep come the final run in!

Another huge sporting even this weekend is Khan Vs Barrera - the Coming of Age! I think this could be an amazing fight, on one hand an incredibly strong, fit, talented and determined Khan, on the other, one of the greatest pound for pound boxers of all time, even if the Mexican is definitely on the downwards curve of his career. It will be interesting to see how this pans out, as I think Barrera will not try to stand toe to toe with the bigger Khan, but will instead use of all of his ring craft skills to try to wear down the man from Bolton and take the fight the distance. I do think Amir will be too strong for the older man, but if Barrera can get under his skin and find gaps in his Freddie Roach trained defence (much improved since his shock loss) then we could have a "Humdinger" on our hands, although I am going to go with Khan to win by KO in the 6th.

Finally, my new favourite rugby team (Not because I am training with the boys............honest......) the Birmingham and Solihull Bee's take on Mounts Bay in National Division 2 in what is a must win game for the Bees if they hope to snatch automatic promotion into National 1. If you are at a lose end tomorrow afternoon, why not pop down and see the game, tickets are well priced between £2-£10 which for an afternoon of great fast, flowing open rugby is nothing, plus there is a free bouncy castle for the kids, Guinness and IPA on tap and hopefully it will be a beautiful day too!

Right you lot, don't forget to listen to Offside on Kerrang! Radio (105.2 FM, or on Sky, DAB and Freeview) from 1-5pm tomorrow where I will be keeping you updated on all of the big sporting events while playing the best darn rock music around, and check back on Monday to read my round up of all the weekends sporting shenanigans!