Expansive England eye ultimate prize

One by one, the barricades of history are being dismantled and cleared out of the road - a road that may very well take England to a World Cup final at the Aussie Stadium in Sydney towards the end of November.

Clive Woodward's team produced another remarkable performance on Saturday night, beating Australia with a win wholly different in character to the backs-against-the-wall effort against New Zealand in Wellington a week earlier but every bit as memorable, to record a first test victory on Wallaby soil in 11 attempts stretching back four decades.

They have the stamp of something special about them. Something very special.

After a week of Australian spin and black propaganda, aimed at disrupting England's rhythm by neutralising their power and expertise in the close-contact areas, the tourists might have been forgiven for sticking the ball up their collective jumper and denying the reigning world champions so much as a glimpse of the thing.

To their credit they chose the footballing option instead. By putting three tries, all of them by outside backs, past a Wallaby defence renowned in every corner of the union landscape for its parsimony, they buried one of the most fondly held prejudices of the Southern Hemisphere - that cliched codswallop about the one- dimensional, limited, boringly pragmatic English.

For 20 minutes during the first half Martin Johnson and company produced some of the most accomplished rugby ever seen from an England test team.

As it was, England turned round only 12-3 to the good, a margin that did them few favours and was no reflection of their superiority.

Suddenly, there were shades of the second Lions test in 2001, played in the same city, when the Wallabies recovered from a serious first-half beating to dominate the second half and square the series - not least when Joe Roff, the best of Saturday night's Australians by a distance, kicked two penalties within 11 minutes of the restart to reduce his side's arrears to a mere three points.

But Jonny Wilkinson landed a 34m penalty when Jeremy Paul, the Wallaby hooker, failed to roll away from a ruck after tackling Ben Kay, and when Ben Cohen slipped away from Steve Kefu and hared past Chris Latham for England's third try on 67 minutes, the mould-breaking deed was pretty much done.

Australia responded as best they could in the final quarter, their trio of rugby league converts - Wendell Sailor, Mat Rogers and Lote Tuqiri - stretching a brilliantly organised English defensive line with their deep-field running.

The out-sized Sailor contributed a striking individual try in injury time, leaving Lawrence Dallaglio for dead in midfield and wrong-footing Matt Dawson on his way to the right corner, but Wilkinson had the final say by jubilantly hoofing over another penalty with the last kick of a wildly successful tour.

So England finished as they had started, by subduing the Wallabies both physically and psychologically.

Will Greenwood's early try set the standard. Johnson, who may never have played a more complete 80 minutes for his country, handled no fewer than four times as the tourists mounted their first assault on the Australian line and when Cohen found Greenwood with a pass off the ground, 13 perfectly executed phases were rewarded with the sight of the Harlequins midfielder ploughing through Kefu's tackle to the left of the posts.

If anything, Mike Tindall's try was better still. Johnson was heavily involved again, as were Dallaglio and Trevor Woodman, who repeatedly caught the eye on his return to his country's front row.

Neil Back, beavering away at the base of the crucial ruck, chucked out a pass that could only be described as dodgy, but Wilkinson's sleight of hand - no, the first five-eighth is not a complete robot - and a wonderful pressure pass from Greenwood freed Tindall on a joyous gallop to the left flag.

At this stage, only Roff presented a genuine threat to England's well-being. The big left wing has always been the classiest of class acts, and some of his work on Saturday night was a pleasure to behold. Australia needed him at his best, lumbered as they were with the hard-tackling but unsophisticated Nathan Grey at first five-eighth and a centre pairing of precious little experience.

Roff did everything in his power to oblige, repeatedly finding ways of launching attacks from unpromising situations. Ultimately, though, the English backs cramped his style with their smothering defence.

The Australians will improve over the next three months or so, and will take an awful lot of beating come tournament time.

Sailor is beginning to find his way around the union game, and if Tuqiri is really as hot as his one clean break on Saturday suggested, look out.

But England, with Johnson in his pomp, believe they too will move onwards and upwards.

This 28th meeting between the two countries was a quality affair. The 29th meeting may well be a classic.

- INDEPENDENT