Peter Bills: England face a wide chasm

Jerome Kaino's indiscretions ought to concern the All Blacks. Photo / Getty Images

The very different levels of precision and attention to detail of the New Zealand and England rugby teams were laid bare at Twickenham on Saturday.

New Zealand might have had to negotiate some tricky moments, and a 10-point victory hardly suggests a rout.

But a great chasm separated the sides in terms of expectation, clinical finishing and poise, power and decision-making at critical moments.

Overall, I thought this was a fairly ordinary New Zealand performance.

They spilled ball, made several elementary errors and had Jerome Kaino sin-binned at a crucial time for persistent offending.

Kaino's indiscretions ought to concern the All Blacks.

For a start, they don't need to keep infringing - they're too good a side to have to stoop to these levels.

And if they don't eliminate it from their game, it could come back to haunt them at a critical moment. Like a World Cup quarter or semifinal ...

Even at perhaps no more than 60 per cent of their potential, New Zealand scored two first-half tries with some aplomb.

England then created two scoring opportunities before half time, but blew both.

Poor vision, ordinary passing and bad poise and judgment at the vital moment undermined their efforts.

England manager Martin Johnson later bemoaned this facet of his team's play, saying they were rusty and had squandered scoring chances.

True, but England sides have been doing this ever since their 2003 World Cup winning team fell apart.

This lack of creativity and subtlety is a fundamental weakness of the English game, and one of the reasons is that players are unaccustomed to the high levels of demand and personal expectation New Zealand rugby players handle every time they play the game.

This is one of the core differences between the two nations.

Thus, there was an air of predictability about the whole game at Twickenham.

Even well below their best, New Zealand were never going to lose this game because England's players are not used to operating at such sustained speed, under such consistent pressure as teams like New Zealand apply.

For New Zealand to have won by 10 points while playing considerably short of their best and with a man missing for almost the entire last 10 minutes, showed the difference in standards between these countries.