Für unsere Gäste » water, said Margaret Greene, a longti

Forwards coach Steve Borthwick says England are excited about Sundays one-off Test with Wales at Twickenham, live on Sky Sports 3.The fixture replaces the traditional end-of-season non-cap international against the Barbarians and is being staged to assist the Rugby Football Union in compensating Aviva Premiership clubs for the disruption caused by last autumns World Cup.England will select their strongest available team for the last of three Twickenham matches in eight months against Warren Gatlands men, but are missing players from league finalists Saracens and Exeter, who meet at the same venue 24 hours earlier. The following day the Grand Slam winners head to Australia for a three-Test series against the Wallabies and Wales depart for New Zealand, before a season that effectively started in September 2014 because of the World Cup finally comes to a close.Borthwick insists England should expect to win on Sunday despite the unavailability of stars such as Billy Vunipola, Maro Itoje and Jack Nowell in front of what is expected to be a full house.From our perspective, this is a Test match. It feels like a huge and exciting Test match, the forwards coach said.At this point weve sold 78,000 tickets so its going to be a sell-out or very close to a sell-out. Luther Burrell is over missing the World Cup and is only focused on Englands upcoming games against Wales and Australia The supporters are excited about it and its a brilliant opportunity to be playing this game in May in what should be a good game.Weve prepared the best we can and we want to win as many matches as we can.Leicester prop Dan Cole echoes those sentiments and is treating the contest seriously ahead of the three-Test summer tour of Australia.Cole admits he would rather have been lining up at Twickenham for the Tigers, but insists they are ready for a tough challenge. Dan Cole is ready for a tough test against vWales Ideally Id be playing in the Premiership final, but Im not. Its not a warm-up game, its a Test match, he said.For me its part of the Australia tour, a four-Test block. Its good being in camp because [head coach] Eddie Jones has put a real spring into the English step.Watch England v Wales on Sunday. Coverage begins on Sky Sports 3 HD at 2:30pm.Also See:Burrell wants England tour spotTuilagi will return strongerWhen is England v Wales on SkyWarburton out of England clashMichael Kidd-Gilchrist Jersey . LOUIS -- Alexander Steen scored a power-play goal with 59. Larry Johnson Jersey . The home side created most of the chances but struggled to break down Braunschweigs resilient defence, resulting in the Bundesligas 1,000th scoreless draw. http://www.hornetsteamproshop.com/Cheap-Miles-Bridges-Hornets-Jersey/ . Defencemen Drew Doughty, Shea Weber and forward Ryan Getzlaf also scored for the Canadians, who started their gold-medal defence 2-0. Goalie Roberto Luongo, getting the call in place of Game 1 starter Carey Price, was solid when needed in making 23 saves for the shutout. Malik Monk Jersey . In what the team had called a retirement, Ryan said Thursday that he is resigning as chief executive of the Rangers in a move effective at the end of this month. Glen Rice Jersey . LOUIS -- Heading into the final stretch of the season, the issues for the Chicago Bears banged-up defence only seem to be getting worse.LUMBERTON, N.C. -- A handful of volunteers wait outside the nondescript warehouse as an 18-wheeler with the oversized Duke football helmet emblazoned along the sides rumbles to a stop. A few men wear work clothes. A few others are decked out in Blue Devils garb.I thought you were a North Carolina fan, one volunteer teases.Not today, the other replies.This is how it is throughout this region of flood-ravaged North Carolina these days. Theyre all on the same team. Rivalries disappear when someone is willing to chip in with some needed supplies.Dukes equipment truck backs into a loading dock while a half-dozen members of the Blue Devils football team -- all graduate students on an off week from classes -- pile out of a van to help unload the freight.There are diapers and toothpaste, cases of water and Gatorade, towels, blankets and pillows. There are sneakers and sweatshirts and a handful of Pinstripe Bowl Champions T-shirts, all donated from Duke for residents displaced from their homes in the wake of Hurricane Matthew and the flooding that followed.As soon as I told people we were struggling, there was a ton of stuff, said Duke wide receiver Kane Banner, a Lumberton native whose father coaches the citys high school football team. These guys taking time out of their day to come home with me -- theyve got busy schedules, but they saw one of their brothers was hurting.Duke hosted Army on Oct. 8 as the storm dumped rain across the East Coast. It was a bad storm, of course, but it wasnt until the game ended and Banner retrieved his cell phone that he started to grasp the impact on his hometown. There were calls from family and texts from friends. He flipped on the TV and saw the pictures. It was horrifying.Around the same time, Shayla Oxendine was trading texts with her brother. Oxendine is a Lumberton native, too, but she now lives in Raleigh and works for the US Marshals Service. Her entire family still lived in Lumberton, and as the flood waters rose, the text exchanges with her brother became more panicked. Late that evening, he finally decided to evacuate. He trudged through to his car, holding kids in each arm, water up to his waist.The following Monday, as Banner addressed his team asking for donations he could bring back home, Oxendine put in a call to her friend, Gerald Harrison, an associate athletic director at Duke. Both had the same idea.Duke is very giving to the community, so I sent an email in hopes of a reply, Oxendine said. This wasnt the reply I was expecting, but its so awesome. My heart is full.Harrison reached out to Duke coach David Cutcliffe, Cutcliffe talked with Banner and the drive to get supplies from Durham to Lumberton began.Players donated all they could, from old gear to canned goods. The school set up a promotion for the Blue Devils game against Virginia Tech on Nov. 5 -- with donations of three canned goods getting a discounted ticket. The school also gave Harrison a hefty budget to buy supplies to bring to Lumberton, so Harrison took the equipment staff on a shopping spree.We went out and lost our minds, Harrison said. Its funny, when you give yourself a budget thats pretty high, you just start throwing stuff in the cart.ddddddddddddFor Lumberton, every donation matters. The city -- along with a sizable portion of the Eastern part of North Carolina -- went without power for days, and without water for even longer. Even as Duke was delivering supplies nearly two weeks after the storm, residents were just beginning to return to their homes to inspect the damage. Along Almanac Road, in the Southern part of the town, doors were swung wide open to air out the flood-damaged furniture inside, and clothes hung on chain-link fences to dry. A horse farm still featured massive lakes of flood water. At the height of the destruction, Oxendine said, the heads of the horses sticking above the water line were all that could be seen.Back at Duke, the team felt the impact of the storm, too.I know weve had some parents coming to Durham to stay with their sons [after being displaced], Cutcliffe said last week. We prayed every day as a team for all of those people affected in our state.Banners family was safe. They had a few downed trees and a little water in the garage, but no major damage. They were the lucky ones.One of Banners friends from high school said his mother, aunt and grandmother all lost their homes, and they were hardly alone. More than 150 cots were laid out in a community gymnasium in the center of town for residents with nowhere else to go. Some came from surrounding counties as shelters there closed down; many were unsure when theyd get to go home. Dozens of volunteers from the American Red Cross and other organizations were there to help, and one by one, people from around the community came by to drop off blankets and food and water.They told me yall needed towels, one man told Red Cross volunteer Star Houston, the shelter manager, as he offloaded bags from his pickup truck. So I went and bought all of them I could find.The town simply wasnt prepared for destruction of this magnitude. Its the little things that matter so much now.They were people out on rubber rafts, putting senior citizens in boats to get them out, wading through the water, said Margaret Greene, a longtime Lumberton resident who has been in various shelters since the storm. So any help is good. Theyve been good to us.Dukes donations filled up the majority of the 18-wheeler, and players offloaded each item into the warehouse that now serves as a makeshift distribution center for victims. Its hardly an answer for people who lost everything, but its something, and that was important to Banner.The community in Lumberton and a dozen other small towns surrounding it are still hurting, and recovery is still a long way off, but Banner said he hopes they realize they arent alone.Its not just the stuff were bringing, but from a morale standpoint, Banner said. Lumberton is a tough city, but when you see people coming in to help, it gives you the mindset that things will be OK. ' ' '