THERE is a belief that old players should fade away gracefully from the game, without embarrassing themselves with the tired old line 'The game was better in my day'.

Perhaps someone should then reiterate this to the 'mouth of the south' David Campese, who makes his regular reap-pearance ahead of the Australia-England clash.

Like an irritating itch that just can't be scratched, the one-time fleet-footed winger is trotting out the usual anti-England garbage that means that he is becoming better known for his off-field rants than his try-scoring exploits de-serves.

However, is it possible the man famed for his goose-step away from would-be tacklers is actually worried about what he has seen?

Ever since the 1991 World Cup Final when Australia won 12-6, Campese's fa-vourite attack has been England's failure to beat the southern hemisphere teams.

Now, with England travelling to Mel-bourne tomorrow on the back of 12 straight wins, including their Twicken-ham triumphs over the Wallabies and South Africa and 'double' over the mighty All Blacks, Campese has been forced to change tact.

His latest rant sees him claim England are a threat to the game as they are boring, they don't score any tries and rely solely on Jonny Wilkinson. Admit-tedly, Clive Woodward's side were shut out against New Zealand, but the match was far from boring.

Campese's claim that England don't score tries also falls short when you look at the cold hard facts of 30 tries in nine Tests, including the autumn successes over the tri-nation axis, while before the All Blacks clash, they had crossed the try-line in each of their previous 16 Tests.

In comparison, the Wallabies have man-aged 29 tries in nine Tests and were shut out by Ireland at Lansdowne Road in the autumn.

And there is little doubt that it is these facts that Eddie Jones and the Austra-lian side will be looking at, will their former servant rants on.

Jones already has enough problems on his plate trying to combat the England pack, the threat of Wilkinson and the selection of his own side.

The latter two have not been helped by the fact, the Wallabies have been left without a recognised fly-half through the injury to the talismanic Stephen Lark-ham - a player rated down under as better than Wilkinson - and the indiscre-tions of Elton Flately, who was sent home in disgrace after sleeping through a squad session.

Centre Nathan Grey, a fearsome tackler and a tricky runner, has been handed the stop-gap role, as Jones resisted the temp-tation to move Joe Roff in from the wing to the number ten position.

Campese's annual sound-off is unlikely to have any effect on the England side, who have become accustomed to the un-founded criticism from the former Wallaby No11.

With a record that speaks for itself, and Woodward remaining as focused and as unfazed as ever, they it will business as usual for the world's top-ranked side.

Woodward has also kept his changes to a minimum, with just a swap in the front row from the side then produced heroics in Wellington, with Jason Leonard and Graham Rowntree making way for Phil Vickery and Trevor Woodman.

On the bench, Wasps' talented fly-half Alex King has been handed the back up role to Wilkinson.

However, Easingwold-educated Wood-ward will again be looking to his pack, inspired by Martin Johnson and Law-rence Dallaglio to lead from the front in what is sure to be another classic en-counter and marker ahead of this autumn's World Cup.

Tomorrow's squad

Australia: 15 Chris Latham, 14 Wendell Sailor, 13 Morgan Turinui, 12 Steve Kefu, 11 Joe Roff, 10 Nathan Grey, 9 George Gregan (captain), 8 Toutai Kefu (vice-captain), 7 Phil Waugh, 6 David Lyons, 5 Nathan Sharpe, 4 David Giffin, 3 Patricio Noriega, 2 Jeremy Paul, 1 Bill Young.

Replacements: 16 Brendan Cannon, 17 Ben Darwin, 18 Daniel Vickerman, 19 Daniel Heenan, 20 Chris Whitaker, 21 Mat Rogers, 22 Lote Tuqiri.

England: 15 Josh Lewsey, 14 Jason Robinson , 13 Will Greenwood, 12 Mike Tindall, 11 Ben Cohen, 10 Jonny Wilkin-son, 9 Kyran Bracken, 8 Lawrence Dallaglio, 7 Neil Back, 6 Richard Hill, 5 Ben Kay, 4 Martin Johnson, 3 Phil Vick-ery, 2 Steve Thompson, 1 Trevor Woodman.

Replacements: 16 Mark Regan, 17 Jason Leonard, 18 Steve Borthwick, 19 Joe Worsley, 20 Matt Dawson, 21 Alex King, 22 Dan Luger.

Updated: 12:11 Friday, June 20, 2003