England 12 Australia 10
KEY POINTS:
The over-riding feeling after one of the great World Cup boilovers was that this Australia side chronically under-rated the world champions.
It cost them the match and went a long way to ending some great careers, including that of coach John Connolly.
Few people gave England a chance to beat a Wallaby team that had more pace across the park than an ageing England team. Early, when they moved the ball wide, Australia made big gains while England looked ponderous in return. But England had three things Australia didn't: Jonny Wilkinson; a dominant scrum; and a ferocious desire to win every breakdown.
Of those three elements the scrum and breakdown proved most decisive.
Andy Sheridan quite simply had his way with Guy Shepherdson. This was not man against boy, it was man against mouse. On the other side of the scrum Matt Dunning was playing the fall guy, that is he fell over every time there was a scrum engagement. Phil Vickery would love to play him every week.
A beleaguered Connolly said his team "hung in there, that is about the best you can say".
He instead pointed to the breakdown as the phase where the game was lost.
"We were beaten at the breakdown comfortably and that is the most disappointing thing."
Australia scored the only try of the game, to Lote Tuqiri, and at one point it looked as if they could score every time they moved the ball. England recognised that and didn't allow the ball to be moved quickly from the contact area. The ball rarely left the ground.
"I honestly thought we were the better side," England coach Brian Ashton said. It was hard to argue.
"It was good old-fashioned guts," Phil Vickery, England captain, said. "You play sport and some very strange things happen."
While both sides claimed that the pre-match 'banter' played no part in the final result, Australia were not helped by some of the ridiculous comments made before the game by people that should have known better. John O'Neill boldly claimed everyone 'hated' England, David Campese weighed in with his normal Anglophobic nonsense and Alec Evans said if Australia played rugby they would win by 30 points. Why they felt the need to load up England's motivational ammunition is anybody's guess.
Guess what? England won.
The question is, how much did Australia contribute to their own demise.
