Six defeats on the trot eh? Record defeat at home hmm? Four tries ran home against us by the All Blacks what? In theory I should be feeling quite down, quite aggrieved and annoyed when looking at the post match proceedings.   Not so, I came away from watching England's first outing since their not-so-merry jaunt down under feeling hopeful, confident in fact. Confident that England have turned the corner.

My reasons for this rather feeling out of character are many but, for the moment, I shall have to focus on what England didn't do well first.

We can excuse England, bereft of tip top talent through injury and having to cement under a new coaching team and head of Elite Rugby, but some errors on the pitch, pretty obvious really.

We all know the well worn point, made again and again, that if you give the All Blacks - or any southern hemisphere side for that matter - and they'll snatch it away, plus interest. We made those kinds of errors. They were (mercifully) quite few, maybe a dozen one might suggest, but they were still made. The most memorable would be Allen's slow and lazy pass and even though he is brand new to International rugby, he has to be told that he can't make those kinds of passes.    And that's where most of the All Black tries came from. Wayward passes and spilled balls. We need to be far tidier than that when we meet Argentina and the Springboks.

The next thing to focus on is the position of fly half. This has always puzzled me as most of my comrades in arms continually wring their hands over the position of the number eight and flankers. This, to be honest, puzzles me as the real crisis areas right now are actually at fly half and full back. For now however we shall just focus on the position of fly half and specifically, Charlie Hodgeson.

The guy really was anonymous today. It was all Carter, Carter, Carter and more Carter, with a bit of Carter on top too for good measure. And when Hodgeson was called on to reply; nothing came out. All we got were a few half hearted kicks for territory that would make Dan Parks look like a superstar. His kicking was wayward at best and awful at the times when it really mattered. He just seemed a little over awed by the prospect of locking horns with the very best fly half in the world. And if you show your opponent that you're a rabbit caught in the headlights; you get punished.

The sad thing is that we don't really have an alternative here, a player who can combine swashbuckling daring, good tackling and excellent kicking into one amazing package. The very best one could hope for would be to merely have a backup kicker in the form of a dependable Mark Van Gisbergen at full back to cover for when Hodgeson decides to retreat into his special place (usually located somewhere between his care bear heart and his spleen). However one thing is for sure: we need a fly-half.

And now onto the positives, for this, I shall attempt to put things in perspective. Maybe by regurgitating some match facts.

One very important thing to point out is this. Everyone bangs on about Richie Mcaw's so called magical ability to gain turnover ball, where was that? Iin 2005, Mcaw and the All Blacks were devastating at gaining turnover ball (and more importantly scoring from turnover ball), this time round however, Mcaw found it much harder to get turnover ball and when he did, the All Blacks found it very hard to score from it.

This was because England was far tidier at the ruck. They were also had a little more urgency and were more intelligent at the ruck and were able to almost equal the amount of turnover ball won (England won ball 7 times to New Zealand's 9). We forced the All Blacks to scratch and sniff for any chance that they could find, we in effect, removed from them the luxury of dictating when and where they were going to score tries; a sea change from a year ago.

Then there is the issue of conceding penalties. England 8, New Zealand 12. A year ago when we were lacklustre, untidy and frankly more indiscipline than the kids at your average inner city school; we gave away a veritable tsunami of free kicks and penalties.    Today though we were far cleaner, the usual suspects of Moody and Grewcock were worthy of having their ASBOs removed with fine (one or two stupid regressions aside) conduct throughout the game.

And at the same time we decided that we could do that wide, high risk and expansive game of rugby too. Seeing England throwing around the ball was very refreshing but seeing Shaun Perry stealing All Black ball and racing for a try, to do something which for so long had been the reserve of either Australia or the All Blacks raised eyebrows for me. It showed one thing: that if you play high risk rugby like the All Blacks do, you will get burned if you start to take it for granted.

Shaun Perry's try showed that even when the All Blacks were in full, ultra confident flow; they were fallible. Something Bernard Laporte and Les Bleus will be taking very careful look at. And I guarantee you, the French will be far more claustrophobic and punishing than England can ever hope to be right now.

On the issue of Shaun Perry, he had a very rough start to his international debut. His opposite number (Byron Kelleher) gave the poor brummie hell for the first half hour at the scrum and beyond. One important thing was that he wasn't experienced enough on the international stage to be aware enough to know which All Black players off the ball could be a danger in the next few phases.

However, as time progressed, Perry started to assert himself, gradually telling Kelleher to push off and stamping his authority at the scrum. His try was pure genius, making the point that All Black passes, even the most fancy of passes, can be intercepted.

Anthony Allen was a more complicated debut. The young man showed immense promise and to be frank I think his good moves and intelligent running angles (especially the one to set up the first Noon try) outweigh his inexperience and the odd gaffe. What was nice was that the partnership betwixt Allen and Noon was sound. We can stop worrying now about who to pair up (for now) and we can now start worrying about how best to get Allen up to a standard of experience that can do this partnership justice.

And then Paul Sakey, oh! Paul Sakey, the man is my hero, his deft little runs, the way that he slid, slipped and fought his way through multiple opponents like a samurai marking his last stand against a hundred opponents was fantastic. This is swashbuckling, fun filled and hilarious rugby of the kind we lost when Jason Robinson retired. All aboard the the Sackey express! Where he stops? Nobody knows!

In defence too he was fundamentally sound, rough around the edges, but sound. I really do like him, he's growing on me and I can see why he is such a prolific scorer in the Premiership.

For the established regulars who shone, Martin Corry stepped up as both captain and flanker boldly going where no Corry family member has gone before in an England jersey. He played very well as a ball carrier and it was sad that Pat Sanderson could not assist more than he did.

Poor old Pat, the man who fought like a man possessed down under earlier this year played quite a anonymous game. If he was more motivated to put his foot down he would have been able to support guys like Corry more.

For once Balshaw played a game where he wasn't made to look like an abject imbecile. That in itself is I suppose a definite plus. His kicking was reasonable good and when he did run (albeit rarely) he made sure he made some yardage before the inevitable happened.

Noon was excellent. He worked hard and looked visibly hungry to get at em' and amongst them. I was very pleased to see him score at least one try. He seemed to work really well with Allen and the two rubbed off on each other which is an excellent state of affairs. Long may it continue.

One of the areas I was more worried about was at the scrum. On paper one of the best, our strong area, old faithful, etc. In short a regular performer. However this pack had not played together properly since the six nations just gone, whereas the All Black pack had in one form or another had time to gel and bond in the run up to this match.

After a few initial wobbles, slowly but surely, the rust was cast off England's amazing scrum machine and it breathed fire once more, only to creak a little and groan from some stiff joints. While at the scrum England do need to work harder, it was nice to see Sheridan, Chuter and White together again and causing at least one or two problems for their opposite numbers.

To sum up, I really can't stress this enough but the more and more I go over the match, look at the stats and watch the highlights. The more I think about it, the more I focus on specific England players, the more I go over set pieces, plays and passes; the more I start to think that we've finally turned a corner.

The All Blacks were the better team. But we made them work for their win, we made Joe Rockoko run like a man possessed for fifty meters, we made Mcaw fight for every ball in ever ruck. We tried our very hardest to give them nothing to work with and at times England's proverbial banged up Nissan Sunny outpaced the shiny, revved up All Black Holden Commodore.

When the All Blacks head for France later this month, they'll have to contend with France's proverbial Renault F1 car. It will be interesting to see if the All Blacks can step up a gear to meet the onslaught they know will surely be coming.

View a Printer Friendly version of this Story.

Bookmark or share this story with:

• Digg
• Delicious
• Facebook
• Reddit
• Stumbleupon