Skipper Martin Corry made it quite clear before today’s match that he would take a 6-3 win. Perhaps not the most impressive way of lifting the Cook Cup, but still, a win is a win. England achieved much more than that today and put in an encouraging and desperately needed performance to banish the Wallabies to their seventh successive loss. The final score stood at 26-16.

A scrappy start saw Corry drop Mat Rogers' kick-off in a match and scrum half Matt Dawson soon added to England's error count when he was held on at the base of a ruck. Rogers kicked the resulting penalty to put the Wallabies 3-0 up.

At this point it was Australia who were playing all the rugby and it needed a fine cover tackle from Hodgson to haul down left wing Mitchell.

England drew level when Australia captain George Gregan, the world's most-capped player in his 116th Test appearance, was ruled to have obstructed full back Josh Lewsey and Hodgson kicked the 13th minute penalty.
England then saw flanker Lewis Moody sin-binned for killing the ball and Rogers put Australia 6-3 up.

Gregan later failed to retreat before tackling Dawson after a typically quick tap penalty, he was yellow-carded by French referee Joel Jutge. From the resulting scrum, the ball was worked across field and Lewsey's cut-out pass found left wing Cohen, making his first Test start in over a year, who dived over for a 29th-minute try, his 30th in 47 Tests.

Before half time Hodgson missed a kickable penalty but the Sale fly half extended England's lead to 13-6 a minute into the second-half with a well-taken drop goal before a Rogers penalty reduced the gap.

Hodgson then struck again following a collapsed maul.

But Latham was still dangerous in broken play and he took the Wallabies close to England's line and, with the aid of Lote Tuqiri, Mitchell was bundled over for a 55th minute try. Rogers converted and the game was all square at 16-16.

On the hour Barkley, an injury replacement for Hodgson, landed a huge penalty from the halfway line to nudge England in front again.

With 15 minutes left Gregan was replaced by Chris Whitaker but he could do little about a series of England scrums five metres from Australia's line which resulted in a 69th minute sin-binning for Baxter.
England went for another scrum and prop Matt Dunning was taken off on a stretcher, after several minutes treatment, as the Wallaby scrum gave way.
With all the Wallabies front-row replacements on, Jutge called for uncontested scrums.
Barkley missed a routine penalty nine minutes from time before Cueto went in at the corner and sealed the match England’s way.

Australia ended the game on England’s doorstep but were bludgeoned up front before Jutge blew the final whistle.

The England forwards put on a monumental performance tearing the Aussie pack to shreds at every opportunity, with Andy Sheridan, eventual Man of the Match, putting in a terrorising display against Aussie prop Al Baxter and some impressive bullocking carries. Next week’s encounter between him and likely starter Carl Hayman should be interesting to watch, to say the least. Apart from the loosehead prop, Steve Thompson had a good day at the lineouts and consistently found his jumpers, putting in an excellent performance in general (though one failed line-out eventually led to the Mitchell try), and Phil Vickery added to the awesome power of the English front row. Perhaps not quite the Phil Vickery of 2003, but getting back there certainly.

Martin Corry’s performance was very sub-par from the skipper making far too many simple errors, dropping the ball in open play two or three times, and failing to control the ball at the foot of two advancing England scrums that would have been all too rare international pushover tries.

Hodgson put in a great performance: accurate with the boot, immense in the tackle (two of which were awesome try-saving ones), and his passing was top notch, setting up the Cohen try superbly. Kicking to touch went wayward a couple of times though.

As with Corry, Mike Tindall didn’t have a great game, proving very uncreative in attack and missing endless amounts of tackles that put the England team in more danger than it should have been. Both centres showed a real lack of imagination and I’d love to see what Stuart Abbott and Ollie Smith put together. Tindall is an experienced player however, and this game aside, will be invaluable.

Certainly an encouraging display from England, and they finally managed to win a tight game (which seemed nearly impossible last season). The forwards were superb but I just wish a little more flair could be found and played in the midfield and give the Cohens, Cuetos and Lewseys more attacking options. For all the possession that England had today, I can’t help but think they should have come away with more points. Another area to work on is defence as some massive cracks were found, especially early on. It’s no surprise that fans are already calling for Phil Larder to pack his bags.

I wouldn’t recommend a lot of changes for next week, perhaps the only question mark for me would be Mike Tindall, but then again, England will need someone there who knows what it’s like to win against New Zealand so I would probably keep him in. The biggest Test does lie next week though, and although the safe money’s on New Zealand, I get the feeling with the kind of forward dominance England showed this week, it won’t be an easy ride for the All Blacks ala Wales and Ireland.

Well done to our boys in white, now take it to them next week!

Josh Lewsey: Solid - 7
Mark Cueto: Cutting-Edge - 8
Jamie Noon: Uninspiring - 6
Mike Tindall: Uninspiring - 6
Ben Cohen: Back? - 7
Charlie Hodgson: Confident - 8
Matt Dawson: 50%-Good - 6
Andrew Sheridan: Unstoppable - 8
Steve Thompson: Great - 8
Phil Vickery: Getting-There-Again - 7
Steve Borthwick: Solid - 7
Danny Grewcock: Solid - 7
Pat Sanderson: Good – 6/7
Lewis Moody: Typical - 7
Martin Corry: Hmmm - 6

Mark van Gisbergen: Faultless – n/really/a
Olly Barkley: Superb – 7

ENGLAND:
Tries: Cohen, Cueto
Cons: Hodgson, Barkley
Pens: Hodgson 2, Barkley
Drop: Hodgson

AUSTRALIA:
Tries: Mitchell
Con: Rogers
Pens: Rogers 3

England: 15 Josh Lewsey, 14 Mark Cueto (Mark van Gisbergen, 1-5), 13 Jamie Noon, 12 Mike Tindall, 11 Ben Cohen, 10 Charlie Hodgson (Olly Barkley, 57), 9 Matt Dawson, 8 Martin Corry, 7 Lewis Moody, 6 Pat Sanderson, 5 Danny Grewcock, 4 Steve Borthwick, 3 Phil Vickery, 2 Steve Thompson, 1 Andrew Sheridan.

Unused replacements: 16 Lee Mears, 17 Matt Stevens, 18 Louis Deacon, 19 Chris Jones, 20 Harry Ellis.

Australia: 15 Chris Latham (Matt Giteau, 40-45), 14 Mark Gerrard (Matt Giteau, 70), 13 Lote Tuqiri, 12 Morgan Turinui (Lloyd Johansson, 73), 11 Drew Mitchell, 10 Mat Rogers, 9 George Gregan (Chris Whitaker, 65), 8 George Smith (Scott Fava, 77), 7 Phil Waugh, 6 John Roe, 5 Nathan Sharpe (Mark Chisholm, 46), 4 Hugh McMeniman, 3 Al Baxter (Greg Holmes, 69-79), 2 Brendan Cannon, 1 Matt Dunning (Tatafu Polota-Nau, 69).

Referee: Joël Jutge (France)
Touch judges: Alain Rolland, Alan Lewis (both Ireland)
Television match official: Simon McDowell (Ireland)

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