Banahan escapes disciplinary action to line up for Grand Slam decider

England’s rugby Grand Slam preparations have received a boost following confirmation that Bath’s Matt Banahan will face no further action over the forearm smash that nearly removed Kelly Brown’s head from his shoulders in last weekend’s Calcutta Cup game against Scotland, leaving the giant forward concussed.

Banahan is now available to replace Mike Tindall at outside centre against Ireland if, as the England camp privately expect, the captain fails to recover from ankle ligament damage.

There’s a heap of trophies up for grabs for England this weekend. The Six Nations championship should be theirs, whatever the result in Dublin: only Wales, who play France in Paris, can equal England’s championship 8 pts, and the English have a far superior points difference from their games.

But only a victory will be good enough for England to claim the Triple Crown – for the home nations team (Scotland, Wales, Ireland and England) that wins all its matches against its neighbors.

Martin Johnson, who will announce his England team on Thursday, will be glad to have the powerful Banahan available for the title decider, although Tindall’s likely absence deprives him of one of the few survivors of England’s last successful Six Nations campaign in 2003.

Officially England are still waiting for a specialist’s report on Tindall’s injury, with Nick Easter on standby as replacement captain. The bigger priority as far as the players are concerned is to bring an end to England’s longest barren spell in the championship since the 1980s.

Experienced team members such as Mark Cueto, who is set to win his 50th cap on Saturday, have won nothing for their country beyond the occasional Calcutta Cup and are desperate to end that dark sequence. The 31-year-old Cueto was particularly honest when asked whether the squad were attempting to play down the scale of the occasion. “We are not a bunch of Muppets. We know there is a Grand Slam there to be won. It’s not like we don’t talk about it,” he said.

“You play for 10 years and you can count on one hand the number of times you get something tangible out of the game. I am in my seventh year with England and I have never won anything. I am not getting any younger and it is massive opportunity this weekend on a personal level.

“We are going into probably one of the biggest games an England team have had since that 2007 World Cup final. To win my 50th cap in Dublin will definitely be something special, it is something you always dream about – but you want to be successful, you want to win things. As a group we know that if we look after the here and now the bigger bonus will fall into place.”

Graham Rowntree, England’s scrum coach, is also hopeful England will keep their heads amid the screeching pressure which awaits them in the Aviva Stadium. In this tournament the English front row have packed down in 59 scrums and conceded just five penalties, a marked improvement in terms of discipline. It has encouraged Rowntree to compare the current side favorably with the 2003 side he played in. “I think this group are even more ambitious. These guys are very demanding of each other and of us as coaches. I have not seen it before. We give them the menu, they decide how to go and play.”

Ireland, meanwhile, remain hopeful Eoin Reddan will be fit to feature on Saturday after the scrum-half was concussed in the first minute of the game against Wales. They are definitely without Munster’s Tomás O’Leary who has suffered a freak eye injury in training after missing Ireland’s last two games with a back problem.

O’Leary was pulling a loaded sled in a speed training session when one of the straps failed, recoiled and struck him in the left eye, causing a bleed which will sideline him for between two and three weeks.

England, like everyone else, are intrigued to find out who Ireland will chose at fly-half.

“If they go with Ronan O’Gara he’ll plug the corners, if they go with Jonathan Sexton they’re probably going to play with a bit more ambition,” predicted Ben Youngs, England’s scrum-half.

O’Gara and his team-mate Sean O’Brien are one of 12 names on the shortlist for the RBS player of the tournament, to be voted for by the fans. The list also includes England’s Toby Flood, Chris Ashton, James Haskell and Tom Palmer; France’s Thierry Dusautoir and Maxime Médard; Wales’s Sam Warburton and James Hook; and the Italian pair of Fabio Semenzato and Andrea Masi.

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