Johnno hopes for the best over Moody
ENGLAND manager Martin Johnson is hopeful captain Lewis Moody will be fit for the World Cup, but admits he won’t find out the extent of his knee injury until today.
Moody yesterday underwent a scan on the problem, which forced him off during Saturday’s first warm-up match for the tournament, a 23-19 win over Wales.
The results will be communicated to the England camp today, but Johnson is optimistic that the resilient Bath flanker will still go to New Zealand.
“The bad news would be that he has got an eight-week injury that would put him out of the World Cup,” said Johnson. “I don’t think it is going to put him out of the tournament, but we’ll see.”
Moody sustained the injury in his first England appearance since November, having missed the whole of this year’s RBS Six Nations campaign with a ligament problem in the same knee.
Northampton’s Tom Wood, who replaced Moody against Wales, might stand to gain from his team-mate’s absence, but insists he wants the man nicknamed Mad Dog among the World Cup squad in New Zealand.
“I want to go to the World Cup with the strongest squad possible to go and win it,” said Wood.