matt banahan bath

Matt Banahan eyeing up his next victim

BATH wing Matt Banahan has been picked in the England centres for the trip to Ireland after Mike Tindall accepted the inevitable and dropped out of the game with an ankle injury.

With Tindall out of the picture, Nick Easter takes over as captain with David Strettle coming on to the bench to replace Banahan,

Full team: B Foden (Northampton Saints); C Ashton (Northampton Saints), M Banahan (Bath Rugby), S Hape (Bath Rugby), M Cueto (Sale Sharks); T Flood (Leicester Tigers), B Youngs (Leicester Tigers); A Corbisiero (London Irish), D Hartley (Northampton Saints), D Cole (Leicester Tigers), L Deacon (Leicester Tigers), T Palmer (Stade Francais), T Wood (Northampton Saints), J Haskell (Stade Francais), N Easter (Harlequins, capt).

Replacements: S Thompson (Leeds Carnegie), P Doran-Jones (Gloucester), S Shaw (London Wasps), T Croft (Leicester Tigers), D Care (Harlequins), J Wilkinson (Toulon), D Strettle (Saracens).