Hansen breathes fire at his lame Welsh dragons

The tame and timid Red Dragons of Wales have achieved something after all: they have transformed their taciturn and profoundly private head coach into a combustible mixture of Brian Clough and Jonathan Ross and forced him to tell it like it is after years of advising outsiders to keep their noses out of his business. Steve Hansen abandoned his notorious suspicion of the public prints and mass media yesterday in favour of an all-guns-blazing assault on those players implicated in the humiliating Six Nations surrender in Rome at the weekend. It was lively stuff.

"Some people undervalued the jersey," said the New Zealander, in full accusatory flow despite the fact that dawn had barely broken over the team headquarters west of Cardiff. "There must have been some complacency at work; clearly, the attitude cannot have been there because we were dominated by a lesser side. How did I feel, sitting there watching it? Pretty frustrated. You know you're going to pay a price for the performance, you know you're going to get hammered, and you can't do a thing about it. If you don't match the desire of the opposition, you're in trouble."

This was new territory for Hansen, not because he comes from an area of New Zealand – Canterbury, regular winners of the Super 12 tournament – where defeat is about as common as a Jonny Wilkinson mis-kick, but because he prefers to operate behind doors that are closed, locked and double-bolted. He was not finished, either. Asked whether his substituted captain, Colin Charvis, would survive long enough to face England at the Millennium Stadium on Saturday, the coach sounded less than forgiving.

"What happened in Italy didn't exactly leave me short of material with which to work this week, and I think you can say there will be changes," he glowered. "The captain? We'll have to wait and see, won't we? He is no different to anyone else." Informed that 95 per cent of respondents to a television poll had called for the Swansea flanker's head, Hansen continued: "They answered emotionally, but I can't afford emotion. I have to look at basic facts. Let's just say I'll be looking at the video."

Should Charvis fall – and in truth, he cannot fall too much further than he did at Stadio Flaminio – the Neath lock Gareth Llewellyn and the Cardiff breakaway Martyn Williams will feature in Hansen's thoughts. He will certainly have to make a change on the right wing if Mark Jones of Llanelli is diagnosed with concussion. "People have asked me if I lost my memory," Jones said with a sorry shake of the head. "If only."

Somehow, English concerns over two of the forwards that started the 25-17 victory over France at Twickenham are small beer by comparison. Jason Leonard, the centurion prop from Harlequins, is rated extremely doubtful after suffering a hamstring injury, while the Leicester flanker, Lewis Moody, is only marginally more likely to recover from shoulder trouble. Matt Dawson may well return at scrum-half, though, assuming he experiences no further problems with his right calf.

Meanwhile, the midfield experiment conducted by Clive Woodward, the England coach, should continue for another 80 minutes at least. "Charlie Hodgson should be feeling fantastic," Woodward said yesterday, having viewed the tape of the Sale stand-off's out-of-position contribution alongside Wilkinson.