The French are taking things by storm at present and it looks like they're conquering Europe. Last weekend's 46-3 victory by Toulouse over Swansea was pretty awesome, but I don't think the English clubs have been getting panned by anyone. It's too early to come to that conclusion.FRANCOIS PIENAARSARACENS PLAYER-COACHSo far, we haven't taken our chances. We lost one of our opening games to a last-minute drop goal and in the other we gave away an 11-point lead Well though the opposition played, our mistakes contributed. I can't talk about other clubs but the experience here is that it has taken longer for the World Cup players to settle We had eight players in the World Cup ... perhaps we should not have played them all at once, but that would not have been fair to them.

It is important teams gel as a unit.ROGER UTTLEYFORMER ENGLAND COACHMaybe it's a World Cup hangover or the sides are slow starters and many have had away matches early on, especially in France. Perhaps the Premiership isn't the toughest league in northern hemisphere rugby. Are the players preparing in the right way? They've got to perform at the highest level and it's the clubs' job to stimulate them. I'm sure the English will be competitive in Europe before the season is out. But if they're not then there's a serious problem.JIM TELFERFORMER SCOTLAND COACHThe current difficulty for the English teams is that a lot of them have changed personnel and coaches and people just aren't familiar with each other.

The Welsh clubs have a similar problem, whereas the Scottish and Irish squads have been together, by and large, for a couple of years. In the case of the English clubs, they've had to do a lot of reorganising since the World Cup. But now the English squads are together, I've no doubt that they will all get stronger as the tournament goes on.. THESE WERE the golden years of Coe and Ovett and Torvill and Dean. Tempting though it is to put them forward as the sportsmen and woman of this half-decade, Carl Lewis has to be the choice.

The highlight of the American's career came at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles where he won four golds. It was said by his critics, of whom there were many, that it was a period of poor competition. Be that as it may, the sight of Lewis accelerating in a sprint or speeding towards the long-jump pit was memorable. In the Los Angeles 100m he started badly yet had a 2.5m lead at the end, the biggest ever margin He was majestic in the 200m. He irritated the home crowd by taking only two attempts in the long jump but he still won comfortably.

Then he anchored the US 4 x 100m relay team to victory and a world record. The only previous athlete to command such a range of Olympic success was Jesse Owens in 1936. Yet the American public was largely unmoved. Although he won nine Olympic golds, Lewis would have gained few awards for modesty. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1961, he won 65 successive long jumps and recorded the most legal 100m times under 10 seconds. His Olympic golds included one given to him in 1988 after Ben Johnson, who had beaten him in the 100m, was disqualified for taking drugs.