England 25-7 Australia 
by David Nicholson
at Twickenham

ENGLAND won a turgid game to take their run of victories to eight, but the biggest cheers of the afternoon were for a series of rolling mauls trundling along the pitch.

If your idea of fun is watching 16 burly men wrestling for supremacy in a slow motion foxtrot, then Twickenham was the place to be.

The opening quarter of the match was scoreless, but flickered into life when fly-half George Ford kicked a penalty for a three-point lead.

Minutes later, Sales Sharks winger Tom Roebuck won the ball in the air to set Ben Earl free to race to the line to score the home side’s opening try.

Earl’s performance won him man of the match, but with a dreary display from both sides, this was not a champagne performance to warm the crowd on a cold November afternoon.

In an understatement, Earl said the game “wasn’t always the prettiest but I am glad we got a win.

“I think the experience over the last 18 months helped coming here today. A year ago we may not have won that game, so I am really pleased,” Earl said.

With persistent pressure, it looked as though the men in white would score again after Earl tried to finish off a move down the left flank, but was help up by Aussie winger Harry Potter.

A poor attacking pass by English centre Fraser Dingwall was picked off by Potter, who ran the length of the pitch to bring the Wallabies back into the game.

But the two-point conversion by fly-half Tane Edmed was the last points that a lacklustre Australia would score.

Edmed ended the first half with a bizarre kick to England after referee Nika Amashukeli told him he could not end the half with a kick straight to touch.

With the referee’s warning in his head, Edmed tried a grubber kick which went straight to the home side, who fumbled the ball.

Australia head coach Joe Schmidt said his side were still in the game, until England sent their replacements on.

“I thought their bench made a huge difference, which is impressive with six British and Irish Lions waiting to come on.”

Schmidt admitted his side were tired after a long season, starting with the Lions tour and the recent conclusion of the Southern Hemisphere rugby championship.

“I don’t want to make excuses as England were very good, but we were sluggish after a long season,” Schmidt said.

Ford described the second half as dismal: “The first 10 minutes of the second half were scrappy but we got there in the end.”

Both sides made a succession of mistakes until that man Roebuck again won the ball in the air to send a bullocking Henry Pollock free to run in the try.

Bereft of attacking ideas, England tried a succession of rolling mauls, which saw hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie scoring a try to celebrate his 50th cap for England.

Head coach Steve Borthwick said his team had some good line breaks but finishing them off was a problem for England.

“The conditions were very greasy but my players thought about that and changed their approach,” the English coach said.

Borthwick admitted that Australia stole too many balls at the breakdown and said his team would have to work on this as this is a strong area of Fiji’s game, who face England next Saturday.

What was impressive was the speed of Earl and Pollock in England’s forwards, and Borthwick has talked about getting his side to play faster in attack.

While Fiji is next up at Twickenham, the All Blacks are looming. To beat them, England are going to have to find a spark of creativity in attack — will Borthwick’s speeding forwards provide the answer?