“To sleep: perchance to dream: ay there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come.”

   Yes you’re right it is too early for this kind of nonsense, our last 3 games have seen 2 decent halves and 1 good 80 minutes, but what an 80 minutes, rarely does an Australia based England fan wish away the remainder of his weekend, but this one couldn’t wait to get to work on Monday morning. The Aussies are getting it from all sides at the moment, they lost the 4 nations Rugby league final to New Zealand, they are non too confident about the upcoming Ashes and then England put their heads in a spin, some quite literally, with an overpowering display at HQ. Should we dare to dream? OK if you insist, so long as you realise that it still really is only a dream for now. For the remainder I shall try to stick to facts with a light sprinkling of superlatives.

From the kick off England tore into the Wallabies, but for a tie it looked as thought the old demon of indiscipline would cost us dear but O’Connor missed two penalty attempts before a Flood penalty gave us the opening score. England were carrying strongly at every opportunity with Easter continuing were he left off against the All blacks and Palmer providing able assistance, but it was the backs (mostly) whose carrying led to the first major breakthrough. First Hape crossed the gainline before feeding Tindall, who spotted Cueto advancing at pace, yes that’s right pace, on his inside. Cueto carried forward before being tackled, in the tackle he managed the offload to Croft who in turn offloaded to the fast approaching Ashton who had the speed and strength to see off 2 would be tacklers to score what this viewer believes to be a better crafted try than the headline grabber that I will talk about later.

Chris Ashton races away for his second try

    O’ Connor’s kicking woes continued as his next effort hit the post, but it wasn’t too long before he finally got Australia’s score going after England were penalised, at the scrum of all things. Dan Cole stepping backwards after the engage in an attempt to wheel the Aussie scrum to the blind side. Not a tactic I would expect us to have to employ against the most maligned scrummage in top class rugby, certainly not with such amateurish execution.

   The Aussie score failed to wrest momentum from England and the star of the day, Youngs, soon had England back in a good attacking position. O’Connor fielded Young’s grubber kick but was engulfed by England defenders who forced the turnover. Croft, in close support once again, drove for the line but was stopped short, England attackers were arriving more quickly than Aussie defenders, a fact not lost on Matt Giteau who prevented Youngs from getting the ball away and earned himself a 10 minute rest. Flood once again took the 3 points on offer. This I believed to be England’s worst, on field, decision of the day. Just 2 minutes remaining on the first half clock, 14 men to play against, close to the try line with England forwards “champing at the bit” surely the scrum was the right option. As it turned out the 3 points were soon negated by a further O’Connor penalty at the end of the half.

   England failed to take Larry David’s advice at half time, and were soon collecting points again in the second half period with a Flood penalty. This seemed to sting the 14 man Wallabies into action and they mounted their first real spell of pressure. Genia thought he spotted a gap and went for the line, Flood Palmer and Tindall combined to slam the door shut and bring down Genia, barely a metre short of the try line. Genia coughed up possession, Youngs looked set to kick from behind his own try line, but instead stepped inside Cooper and sent a pass wide to Lawes who drew the attention of 2 defenders and sent his own perfectly timed pass wide to Ashton. Ashton set off up the touchline with only Mitchell between him and the Aussie try line. Ashton altered his line of running; you couldn’t call it a side step, to the inside of Mitchell and skated past him with alarming ease. Flood added the easy conversion.

  Australia finally showed what their much vaunted backs are capable of when Beale broke the England line, chipped the advancing Foden and won the race to touch down. England fans possibly feared the worst at this point as the Aussies seemed to have remembered how to play, but the players have a new found self confidence and continued their business. Cueto this time making the break beating several Aussie tacklers, when one finally got him Sharpe was penalised for holding on and Flood continued his impressive kicking display. To their credit Australia still wouldn’t lie down and after a shocking lineout overthrow from Hartley they moved the ball wide at pace and put Beale over for his second try. Even this couldn’t dampen England’s new spirit, and they began to rip holes in the Australian defence again, Cueto once more to the fore. No further tries, still an area for England to work on, but two more penalties for Flood sealed England’s best ever points haul, and biggest margin of victory over Australia.

Lewis Moody lifts the Cook Cup

   Still plenty to work on for England, the lineout was far from assured and the centre pairing still looks like a bludgeon, when a rapier is required. I thought Tindall played pretty well, and for all the accolades that England’s attacking play is quite rightly receiving, this victory was based on ferocious defence and Tindall played his part in that. But, Tindall is as Tindall does and England still lacked precision in their attack, with it we could have put 50 points on the Wallabies. I’m afraid that Tindall is ,I believe, a major reason behind that. He will, of course, remain in situ until the coaches have full confidence in the defensive capabilities of the alternatives. Given the way England exposed the defensive weaknesses of “possibly the best attacking back line in world rugby”, perhaps they are right to be a little cautious.

   Finally let’s offer a part of the credit for such a memorable victory to Captain Harry Parker

A video highlight of THAT try