England! England! Yeh-heh! What a win for England last Friday night and what a game and what a comeback!

Obviously Stuart Lancaster must have read the column because, as I pleaded last week, he included Jonathan Joseph in the centre and what a stormer he and Anthony Watson both had, including a try apiece on their full England debuts!

Fly-half George Ford was another stand-out player on the evening while, I thought, James Haskell also had an excellent game in the back-row.

There's certainly life in the old dog yet, and just think he cut his teeth playing down the road at Maidenhead!

In fact, he played at Braywick from the age of five and all of the way through to their Colts team before moving on to Wasps.

Let's hope that Haskell and the rest of his England teammates can turn in an equally impressive performance this Saturday when they take on Italy.

I can hear the chuckles of delight already but, you know, Italy were somewhat unlucky to lose quite so heavily to Ireland last weekend.

It was two late tries that flattered the scoreline for Ireland and, I think, it will be a much tougher match this Saturday than many people are expecting.

The other match on Saturday is Ireland versus France and this too could be a real exciting, full-on, encounter provided of course that the French side bring their `A ' game to the table. You never know with France do you?

And, of course, on Sunday it's Scotland v Wales at Murrayfield where Wales will really have to sharpen up their act if they not going to be beaten on two successive weekends.

Right enough about the internationals what about our local sides and how they faired last Saturday.

Well my Reading boys pulled off a remarkable 11-10 win over Trowbridge at Holme Park where we actually finished the game with 13 men due to having picked up two late yellow cards when leading 11-3.

So all credit to the lads left on the park, they played a blinder and showed tremendous grit and determination as well as tactical awareness to eventually hold out, despite being under pressure on their own line for the closing stages.

In fact it was not a bad day all round as our 3rds beat Henley away 19-17, the 4th team won 45-12 at High Wycombe and the Vets also won over at Marlow by 17-12.

On Sunday, our youngsters, the Code, sealed an excellent weekend beating Wootton Bassett at home 19-10.

It wasn't such a good weekend for Redingensians Rams however, losing for a second time in three games away to Newton Abbot in National Three South West. The pressures is on now for that top spot!

That though is certainly not the case for Reading Abbey who stretched their unbeaten BB&O Premiership record to 13 games in winning 42-8 away to Wheatley.

Elsewhere, there was a heavy defeat for London Irish in LV=Cup action going down 31-13 away to Newcastle.

Irish really need to pull something out of the bag now in the Aviva Premiership to justify their season.

However, they are in action tonight away to Northampton Saints - and it's Friday 13th! Perhaps not good news for Irish fans.

Finally, I just want to flag up the arrival of the Women's IRB World Cup to Holme Park on Saturday, February 21.

A couple of the successful England Women's team will be there with the cup at 10am and everybody is welcome to come along and meet them and get their hands on the cup.

See you next week!