England squeeze past gritty Australians

England overturned a seven-point half-time deficit to power to a 20-13 victory over arch-rivals Australia at Twickenham on Saturday, under the watchful eyes of England’s 2003 World Cup heroes.

Stuart Lancaster’s men have won all but one of their Test matches this year, whilst their opponents have struggled for form since succumbing to the Lions in July – winning just two matches in the recent Rugby Championship.

It was a physical affair from the beginning, with England taking an early lead through the boot of Owen Farrell. It wasn’t long, however, before Australia levelled the scoreboard through a penalty from their own fly-half Quade Cooper, intriguingly installed as vice-captain by Ewen McKenzie.

Saracens fly-half Farrell then missed three relatively simple attempts at goal to provoke murmurs of anxiety amongst the Twickenham crowd, before England powered towards the Australian try line thanks to surging breaks by Billy Vunipola and Joe Launchbury. This time, Farrell directed his kick between the post, leaving the score at 6-3 in England’s favour.

It was only then that Australia took full advantage of Farrell’s wastefulness. A superb darting run up the left wing from Australian full-back Israel Folau gave the Wallabies a great attacking platform just five metres from the England line. After some slick passing, centre Matt Toomua eventually spotted a gap, bulldozing through Billy Twelvetrees to score by the posts and leave England with much to ponder at the interval, trailing 13-6.

But after a presumably chastening team-talk from Lancaster the players delved into their mental and physical reserves to deliver a buccaneering second-half display.

After Harlequins full-back Mike Brown – rightly given the man-of-the-match award – was lucky not to be ruled out of play by the touch judge as he juggled with the ball five metres from the his own try line, England began a move up the field which would end in a darting run up the left wing by London Irish’s Marland Yarde. He was only stopped by a brilliant cover tackle by Adam Ashley-Cooper just metres from the line.

Fortunately, a few phases later. Will Genia’s clearance rebounded perfectly into the safe hands of England captain Chris Robshaw who dived over the line to level the scores. It was Robshaw’s first international try, and capped a typically bellicose performance from the Harlequins man.

It wasn’t long before England scored their second try. After an Australian kick to touch that gave England a lineout well inside the Wallaby half, England strung together a sequence of attacking phases. Once into the Australian 22, Farrell noticed a hole in the defence and duly scampered through to score, despite fears that the try would be ruled out due to Dylan Hartley’s apparent obstruction of Stephen Moore.

Although it was not the performance that many had been hoping for from England, this gritty triumph is what England needed ahead of next weekend’s clash with Argentina.

As for the clash with the All Blacks on 16 November? Despite some excellent individual performances from Brown and Robshaw, the hosts will need to do better than this to replicate last year’s historic 38-21 triumph.