Graphic: Destiny in their hands

Tamper with winning sides at your peril, to which the riposte in Brian Ashton’s case is, which is my winning side? When he and his coaching staff sat down to confirm the England squad that will play South Africa for the World Cup on Saturday, they had only one decision to make and they will discover whether they are right under the lights of the Stade de France.

The choice lay between the retention of the players who finished the semi-final against France, as against the introduction of an individual with greater experience on the wing. Experience having been the theme of this campaign, Ashton, the head coach, plumped for Mark Cueto as a direct replacement for the injured Josh Lewsey, which allowed him to pick an otherwise unchanged side.

You can see his point. Cueto has 23 caps and a Lions tour behind him plus a proven record as a strike runner, with 13 international tries. He has also played full back — the position in which he began this World Cup — so he can cover the back three positions. The competition came from Dan Hipkiss, a centre who made his international debut against Wales only two months ago and has yet to start a game in the World Cup.

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BACKGROUND

• Cueto ready to prove his point in Dad’s Army

• Hipkiss bid to force Ashton’s hand falls short

• Clive Woodward: Why England are my favourites

• Resurgent Gomarsall sets his sights on summit

BACKGROUND

• France exceed all expectations as hosts

• Steyn presents threat in close final

• Broccoli for breakfast is recipe for success

• The rough (sleeper’s) guide to Paris

BACKGROUND

• Robinson calls for 'one last push'

• Springboks unchanged for final

Multimedia

• Graphic: where the final could be won

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• The World Cup Podcast

• Josh Lewsey's video diary

• The Rugby World Cup blog

To have given Hipkiss his start in a World Cup final would have meant pushing Mathew Tait out to the wing, the position to which he moved when Lewsey limped out of the semi-final with a damaged hamstring. Tait has played on the wing before, of course, but Ashton sees him as an outside centre and has allowed him to settle there in the past four games.

Before Hipkiss replaced Lewsey a minute short of the interval last Saturday, he had enjoyed no more than 22 minutes of World Cup rugby, but he showed why he should have been given an earlier opportunity. He was strong in the tackle, he has a burst from a standing start that caught France on the hop, he offers something that bit different that might have asked questions of the Springbok midfield, who will have analysed Tait and Mike Catt to death over the past week.

Cueto’s last game was against Tonga on September 28. He missed the 36-0 debacle against South Africa but even his friends would suggest that his form has been uneven, not just here but over the past injury-affected year. His strike rate of virtually one try a match in internationals came in his first 16 games and declined last season, hardly surprising given England’s struggle for collective form.

There is also the notion, embraced by Martin Johnson, England’s World Cup-winning captain, among others, that those who played last Saturday had earned the right to appear in the final. Well, no one has the “right” to a place in any game, certainly not a youngster of 25 with only two international starts to his credit, but Hipkiss was entitled to feel disappointed.

It will have helped that John Wells, once his coach at Leicester and now England’s forwards coach, took him to one side and invited him to consider just how far he had come in the space of a year: a Guinness Premiership title with his club, a Heineken Cup final, five England caps and a World Cup selection. Not bad for the lad from Diss, in Norfolk.

The manner in which Lewsey, who misses his second World Cup final appearance, accepted the vagaries of fate will also have helped him. “The disappointment lasted a couple of minutes, then it was back into the training sessions,” Hipkiss said. His task in the build-up is to be Jaque Fourie, the Springbok centre who will wear No 13 on Saturday, running the lines that Fourie takes so that England’s first-choice midfield can hone their game.

“My role now is to help see that the starting XV is the best prepared it can be,” Hipkiss said. “This could be the biggest game I’ll ever be involved with, you want to be in the starting side, but if you’re not, you do whatever you can to help.”

His club colleagues, Lewis Moody and Martin Corry, had to settle for just such a role in Sydney four years ago. Moody made it on to the pitch against Australia and claimed the vital lineout throw that began the move that led to Jonny Wilkinson’s dropped goal. Corry removed his tracksuit once but was not required to play.

Now both are in the starting XV and Hipkiss must wait his turn to appear in a side that has changed so significantly since the World Cup began nearly six weeks ago. The front five of the scrum remains the same, but the back row and half backs have changed radically.

Injuries have removed Lewsey and Jamie Noon from the threequarters, and prevented Wilkinson playing fly half in the opening two matches, but preconceptions about the back row and scrum half, where Joe Worsley, Tom Rees, Lawrence Dallaglio and Shaun Perry opened the campaign, are long gone. That was, Ashton said then, his strongest combination with the exception of Wilkinson, but events have changed his mind.