England's challenge for the last Grand Slam ever in Five Nations history faces its nadir on Sunday with their 'away' match against Wales at Wembley.

That they may have failed to sparkle on any of their previous three encounters will matter not a jot to them and, while Wales are quite capable of providing an upset to go along with their wonderful victory against France in Paris, the form money will be on England.

Their top players face, at this time of the season, such an intensity of games that it must be difficult to pull away from club matters and concentrate solely on international duty with little time for recovery, never mind the preparation required at this level.

However the pull of the World Cup gets stronger day by day and those of us lucky enough to have played in one know that this tournament is as big as you can get playing for your country.

England will dearly love to get there by by being Grand Slam Champions but Wales as hosts would be proud of beating both them and France in the space of a few weeks to give them a further boost.

Scotland meanwhile travel to Paris to play the champions of the past two years, who surely cannot play as badly as they did against England three weeks ago.

They must take a leaf out of Wales' book and seek to play the hosts at their own game by running it wide and exploiting the quick release of a second phase ball.

To be fair to then Scotland have played some marvellously entertaining rugby already this term and look capable once again of being a more than competent team come the World Cup.

Their hope is for a victory in Paris together with Wales winning at Wembley which would give Scotland their first ever Five Nations Championship.

This has already been a very exciting year for this great sporting event and how good it would be to finish it off with two cracking games from the Stade de France and Wembley.

Both stadiums have witnessed the crowning glories of the host team lifting the soccer World Cup and what a contrast between the old and new.

England, like the stadium they play in, now need to take their game into the modern era and play with a spirit that at least Wales and Scotland and certainly France aspire to doing.

Quite what England's game plan is is anyone's guess but I suppose as long as it produces the right result then who am I to question their tactics?

Just someone who'd like to see them chuck the ball about that's all.

Me and thousands of others I'm sure. Here's hoping.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.