Jonny Wilkinson's place in the team has not been the only topic of heated debate ahead of England match against Ireland on Saturday. Swooping high above Twickenham and suspended by a complex system of pulleys and cables, the BBC's controversial Spidercam will also be in action again this weekend.
According to the BBC, the innovation provides "magnificent images and a unique overhead perspective of the action". But its use for the first time during the Six Nations opener against Wales led to 169 complaints directly to the BBC and left viewers complaining of feeling "dizzy" and "sickly".
If the BBC persists, it will not be the first sports broadcasting innovation that has met resistance and ended up becoming an integral feature. But many others have ended up quietly going the way of Andy Townsend's Tactics Truck.
Damian O'Connell, head of operations and special projects at Spidercam, the company that developed the technology and provides the equipment and a three-man team to operate it, said he was confident viewers would get used to it.
When broadcasters across Europe first began using the system during football matches in 2006, a wave of similar complaints swept Germany and Italy, O'Connell said. But now the Spidercam is a fixture at big matches, swooping down among the players at the end of last year's Champions League final to pitch level to record thumbs-up gestures from Lionel Messi and his Barcelona team‑mates.
The company provided four systems at Euro 2008 and will equip four stadiums at this summer's World Cup. First developed by the computing expert Jens C Peters in Austria, the system is also in use at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Demand has doubled in the past year, O'Connell claimed, and its use is also expanding into 3D movies and music concerts.
None of which will be music to the ears of the viewers who were left feeling dizzy when the BBC cut to Spidercam at various points during the 30-17 victory over Wales, swooping above scrums and soaring above kickers.
"Please, please, please don't use Spidercam again during live play … suddenly the screen goes to an aerial shot from spidercam and you haven't got a clue what is going on anymore," read one complaint to the BBC's Points of View messageboard. Another compared it to being "on a big dipper".
Other contributors to blogs on the Guardian Sport site railed against the "gimmicky" presentation and the overuse of intrusive camera angles. "It smacked of boys with toys," said one.
"As with football, it will be a process of helping the viewers discover it," O'Connell said. "A lot of the directors were very keen in the beginning on the more PlayStation sort of stuff, which is more for the newer generation and the older generation can struggle a bit with that."
A BBC Sport spokesman said it would "always seek to innovate and stretch the boundaries of our coverage to enhance the viewing experience".
He added: "While Spidercam provides magnificent images and a unique overhead perspective of the action, we also are conscious of the importance of giving viewers a clear and familiar picture of what's happening on the pitch as well as the need not to confuse by cutting to unfamiliar angles."
As with other innovations, including the 3D coverage promised by Sky, much of the onus will be on producers and directors learning quickly how to use their new toys without detracting from the action.
In the technological arms race among sports broadcasters keen to both draw in casual viewers and give keen fans new insight, it seems unlikely that Spidercam will be the last innovation to divide the watching millions. Having spread from football to rugby, cricket is next.
"The IPL are really positive and the sorts of things we're talking about are really groundbreaking," O'Connell said. "There are all kinds of possibilities and it's up to the creativity of the client to decide what to do with it."
