England may not quite not yet look like the bona fide World Cup winners they have confidence they can be in two years’ time, but this was nonetheless a positive first step on the long journey to Australia 2027. It took plenty of graft and grit to overcome the Wallabies but overcome they eventually were, with a ferocious defensive performance and second-half surge getting England off to a solid start in their autumn campaign.
In the process, a few ghosts of last November were perhaps banished. Australia’s victory here 12 months ago had been something of a heist, snatched at the last in an autumn of discontent in which England seemed to have forgotten how to win. This was a very different game, yet there would have been some satisfaction in how, having shipped 42 points to their visitors a year ago, they kept the Wallabies to only a 95-metre intercept try here.
