Happy New Year to you. Let's hope it's a better one for England's cricketers than 2007.

It began with the Ashes ignominy Down Under and ended with defeat in Sri Lanka, and there wasn't a great deal to shout about in between.

England were hammered 1-0 in Sri Lanka. If that sounds a bit weird then it's because the weather prevented the Test series, which ended just before Christmas, from being a 3-0 whitewash.

England did well in bowling Sri Lanka out cheaply in the first innings of the first Test at Kandy but thereafter were always on the back foot, outplayed in all departments.

Their batsmen did not contribute the requisite big scores - only Alastair Cook scored a hundred, and that in the last Test - the bowlers lacked penetration and the fielding was quite simply abysmal.

Some of the selection wasn't too clever either.

Omitting an experienced batsman like Andrew Strauss - with a Test average of more than 40 remember - always looked dangerous, and so it proved.

Young Ravi Bopara was given an opportunity but flunked badly. Sri Lanka is just not the place to experiment with debutants.

It also proved not to be the place for Monty Panesar to prosper. The spinner was a huge disappointment. It may even be that he was found out at international level.

What we have seen previously in England from Panesar is great accuracy, but with balls bowled at a quicker pace than is usual for a spinner.

Panesar tries to spin every ball hard and English pitches offer him natural variation by only responding occasionally.

Sub-continent pitches are different. They turn more but, as a result, require more variation from a spinner.

Panesar recognised that and tried to bowl more slowly. It just didn't work. He was almost lobbing' rather than bowling. It will be interesting to see whether he can now grow as a Test bowler.

So too with the wicketkeeping position. Poor old Matt Prior does cop some awful stick.

Yes, he deserved it in the last Test because he kept very poorly. But overall I thought he had a good series.

He was just tired at the end, victim of a ridiculously punishing schedule.

Stick with him for New Zealand in the New Year. In fact stick with most of the current side - bringing back Strauss of course. And yes, I do need to cheer up as well. I'll try to rectify that.

But in saying that I'm afraid that I can't let this column pass by without some suitably acerbic comment on the Boxing Day rugby farce.

First of all I am glad that I didn't have to pay for my ticket. For nothing that happened on the field - not even the punch up - was worth paying for.

It was absolute garbage as a spectacle, as most of the play in the four festive derbies was.

Boxing Day was Welsh regional rugby at its very worst. You couldn't even defend it by saying that it was played at a high intensity and level of physicality. It wasn't.

The defensive effort of the Newport Gwent Dragons was heroic, but it was helped by some of the most clueless attacking play you could ever wish to see by the Cardiff Blues' backs.

You simply cannot win the percentage of possession they won that day - especially in the first half - and not score. It is impossible. Or not, as the Blues so spectacularly, so ineptly proved.

I like these festive fixtures but there is something seriously wrong when full strength teams are not selected for them.

I wanted to be at Cardiff Arms Park on Boxing Day to see all the stars playing.

I wanted Colin Charvis, Michael Owen and Ceri Sweeney starting for the Dragons.

Instead I watched them warming up behind the goalposts for most of the afternoon.

I wanted Martyn Williams and Xavier Rush playing for the Blues.

Instead they laughed and joked behind me in the stand.

This cannot be right. If it means only playing one fixture over the festive period then so be it.

Resting players for so-called bigger matches short-changes the public. In fairness to the injury-ravaged, cash-strapped Dragons they can point to a successful holiday period after their last gasp victory over the Scarlets. By the way, anyone spot the current Glamorgan cricketer reporting on that game? Budding journalist Mark Wallace it was. The very same Mark Wallace who made his debut covering Newport County two weeks ago.

But overall it was not a good period for the Welsh regions.

And I had something tangible to compare it with.

For I had the fortune to be at Vicarage Road last Sunday when Saracens entertained Newcastle in the Premiership.

What a game and what a pace it was played at.

It wiped the floor with anything the Welsh regions served up. Watch out in the coming months for Newcastle's exciting back line.

Jonny Wilkinson, Toby Flood and Mathew Tait - will be facing Wales in the Six Nations opener at Twickenham and, though you might not want to hear it, they're looking pretty damn good...