There is not thought to be any truth in the rumour that the Leeds tourist board are considering suing England coach Stuart Lancaster for comments he made which damaged the city’s public image.

However, there must be one or two PR people who spend their lives shaping the international perception of Leeds who had mixed feelings about Lancaster’s decision to cancel England’s warm-up camp in Portugal and bring his Red Rose squad to West Park RFC.

Indeed they must have spluttered into their skinny lattes when they heard Lancaster’s explanation for eschewing the temperate climes of the Algarve for, well, Yorkshire. In January.

“By keeping the camp in England we can create a “new” feel in what is a new start,” Lancaster explained.

‘Fine,’ responded the PR department ‘Happy to be a part of it’.

“Hopefully it will give a boost to rugby in the North and help in developing the game in the area,” Lancaster continued.

‘Excellent, we need all the exposure we can get,’ they said.

“It will also allow us to train in conditions that we will be facing up at Murrayfield,” he added. Cue a maelstrom of frothy coffee and vital organs.

‘Now hang on a minute. Is he suggesting our city is going to be anything like Edinburgh on February 4? Contact the lawyers.’

As far as my contacts tell me, there have not been any confirmed sightings of claymore-wielding Scotsmen, blue-faced pipers nor gangs of protein-pumped maniacs rampaging around the streets of Kirkstall.

Never mind, England will have had their fill of those things and more by 7pm on Saturday night when the opening game of their RBS Six Nations campaign has ended.

Win, lose or draw what is certain is that Lancaster and his lads won’t be moaning about the fact it’ll be another two years before they have to come back to Murrayfield.

While the reception will be hot, hot, hot, the temperature will be cold, cold, cold, the conditions wet and the match frantic.

It is safe to say the interim head coach would have chosen a different venue to start the longest, hardest job interview of his life.

And he’d probably have wanted two of his brightest young prospects by his side too. Manu Tuilagi, for whom perhaps bright isn’t quite the right word, and Tom Wood, for whom it definitely is, would have been on his list.

However, England Captain in Waiting, Wood has no fears for Lancaster and once he manages to extricate himself from the air cast that is protecting a foot injury, the back rower hopes to lend his considerable support to his new gaffer.

“I have known him for a while in the Saxons set up and he was around training with the full squad throughout the World Cup,” Wood says. “I hold him in very high regard because he has always got the balance right on Saxons tours.

“There is a risk that those tours can become a bit of a party atmosphere at the end of a long season. But under Stuart that didn’t happen.

“It is important for the lads to feel comfortable and enjoy themselves but everyone still has to do everything they can to win, you are still representing your country.

“We were under no illusion we had to train hard to get the job done.

“There is a bit more pressure now but he’s making all the right noises. I think things are different now and we are heading in the right direction.

“But it’s not for me to be judging him, he’s the one who will be telling me where I need to improve.”

Which is exactly the sort of attitude why it is almost certain Wood will lead his side at some stage in 2012.

Chris Robshaw has that honour at Murrayfield this weekend and again in Rome, after that Lancaster will review the situation and no doubt see if Wood is ready to come back into the equation.

But for the first two games it will all be about who he has got, which is likely to be one of the most inexperienced back divisions in English rugby history.

At the time of writing Owen Farrell, Brad Barritt and Charlie Sharples are the leading candidates to line up behind the scrum, a triumverate with a combined experience of 21 minutes of international rugby.

Much responsibility will rest on the shoulders of Charlie Hodgson who at 31 and despite not having started a Test for the best part of four years, is suddenly the only candidate at fly half.

The Saracen will be charged with being both a steady hand on the tiller and the catalyst that allows the ability outside him to flourish in the inhospitable environment into which it has been thrust.

And Gloucester wing Sharples, who spent his formative years dual registered with Moseley in the Championship, is very much part of New England.

“The whole squad has aspiration of winning the Six Nations, we might be underdogs but that doesn’t change our desperation to do well,” Sharples says.

“There would be no point going into a Six Nations wanting to be there as a bit of an experiment, to chuck the ball around and provide a bit of entertainment.”

Especially not when they turned down a week of Iberian sunshine for everything Leeds and Scotland can throw at them.