Foley careful not to fan flames of Ireland's desires

Peter "The Claw" Clohessy may have replaced his fellow Munster front-rower Keith Wood as the resident folk hero of the most potent Irish international side in a generation – the distribution of 10,000 gruesomely life-like Clohessy masks at Twickenham tomorrow will presumably ensure that the game is not broadcast on television until after the 9pm watershed – but England are not losing sleep over the visiting tight forwards. What really worries the Six Nations favourites is the Ireland back row of Eric Miller, David Wallace and Anthony Foley.

Foley is by some distance the least celebrated of that trio, but he is also the most decorated. Yesterday, the Shannon No 8 took it upon himself to calm the feverish anticipation among the travelling supporters and apply a liberal helping of reality to the big match build-up. "I've been to Twickenham before, and it hasn't been enjoyable," he said. "We always go there with high hopes and great expectations of doing well, but if we don't perform to the very best of our ability, we won't go anywhere close to them. In fact, we'll find ourselves standing behind our own goalposts for a lot of the game."

It was left to Rod Kafer, the Wallaby centre who joined Leicester in the summer, to highlight any shortcomings from which the buoyant English game might be suffering. Kafer wrote a light-hearted article for the Australian Rugby Players' Association newsletter in which he characterised England as the home of "cups of tea, bad food and worse weather", described the rugby as "boring" and the refereeing as "abysmal", adding: "I'll take Somalia any day."

Not surprisingly, Kafer was horrified to discover that selected bon mots had been published in the Australian press. "It was meant to be a spoof, a laugh between mates," he said yesterday. "I just hope people take it as a joke. Someone has leaked it to the press and made it sound like I hate my team and my city."

A certain Leicester club-mate by the name of Austin Healey might find Kafer's plight faintly amusing, given the pandemonium caused by his own journalistic dabblings during last summer's Lions tour of Wallaby country.

World Cup qualifying matches involving Fiji, Samoa and Tonga will begin on 1 June and end on 24 August, according to officials of the three Pacific island unions. However, there will be a break between 15 June, when Tonga play Samoa in Nuku'alofa, and 20 July, when Fiji play Samoa in Suva – a gap that means England could tour the region, as scheduled, without causing the fixture congestion said to be threatening the venture.

Francis Baron, the chief executive of the Rugby Football Union, will report on the "logistical problems" surrounding the proposed trip on Monday. If England pull out – Clive Woodward, the manager, has already expressed a desire to rest a large number of senior players this summer – the future of the International Rugby Board's tour schedule will be at considerable risk.