Brian Ashton mentioned Muhammad Ali in his last words to the media yesterday. "Shock the world" has been one of the buzz phrases he introduced to this squad, and he explained yesterday that he had borrowed it from Ali's extensive lexicon. For Sonny Liston and George Foreman back in Ali's heyday, read South Africa tomorrow.

But today's eve-of-the-final press conference was a bit subdued and lacking the grand address feel of last week. This may be no bad thing, though. England do not want to waste energy by getting hyped and over-hyped at this stage - at least not when they are talking to the press. Given what we know about the extaordinary clamour for tickets, tomorrow's final needs no salesmanship from its protagonists.

But it was interesting to see Mark Regan on the top table, answering questions in as sensible and serious a manner as he could manage. Regan is neither of the two.

He had clearly been briefed on the subject beforehand. These press conferences are now big-time events that go out live on television, so Regan was clearly acting under orders and thus meticulously free of the banter for which he is so well known.

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So it was reassuring to chat to him afterwards to be reassured that pre-match nerves were not getting to him. He was talking about the tour of South Africa last summer and how he avoided the gastric bug that was spreading fast round the squad. "Lots of the guys got ill," he explained in his strong west country accent. "But I was telling them they should drink more cider."