Moody to miss England opener

ENGLAND SKIPPER Lewis Moody has been ruled out of his side’s opening Rugby World Cup match against Argentina in Dunedin this Saturday due to a knee injury.

The Bath flanker missed the entire Six Nations campaign after injuring his knee in January.

Moody returned to action, but suffered a recurrence of the injury during England’s RWC warm-up game against Wales in August and has not played since.

He had been optimistic that he would be fit for the tricky clash against the Pumas at Otago Regional Stadium, but coach Martin Johnson confirmed yesterday that he will not be suiting up.

"He is not quite ready to go today. We hoped he would be fit to start training, but he is not quite there,” he says.

"The medics and the fitness guys take him through a progression of training and we hoped it would all be ready to go today but he is just a little bit short."

Johnson was confident the 33-year-old will be fit for the remainder of the tournament.

“He has been running around today so he is not a million miles away.

"It is just one of those calls, 'Are you ready to participate fully this week and play a test match this Saturday?' Not quite."

England has won two of its past three tests against Argentina.