Corniche Pastie leads England to Shock Win over Australia

Guts and the ability to play a full 15-man game took England through against an Australian side so heavily fancied before the match that no one had given England any chance of winning.

The Wallabies must have believed it, too. They looked flat, as if they were just waiting for one of their number to pick off the first try and open the floodgates. It never materialised; Lote Tuqiri just scraped over through a slipped Lewsey tackle and then England got back on with putting the Aussie eight under immense pressure, forcing the knock-ons, disrupting the line-out and smashing into rucks like they haven't done for a couple of years. The Wallaby back row were never allowed to get on the front foot and, starved of the clean possession they needed to impose themselves in the backs, it turned into scrambled attempts to break the line. They came up empty-handed.

It could have been so different, if Alain Rolland had reffed the last 60 minutes like the first 20. Knock-on, scrum down and Matt Dunning dropped off Phil Vickery, arm to the floor and scrum caves in. Reset, then same again. Rolland was watching Sheridan hitting Shepherdson into next week, and gave a short-arm penalty to the Aussies. It's a tricky area, but come on; get the blindside line judge to help out. Only after 20 minutes did Rolland spot that Dunning just could not cope and after that, waited till the 45th minute to explicitly warn the green and gold front row that "you must not fade off the hit". Game over, because from then on Australia could simply not afford to make handling errors, under all that pressure.

There were some massive performances on both sides; again, Rocky Elsom was everywhere in defence in with the ball in hand, outshining George Smith and Wycliff Palu. Nathan Sharpe tried to fight a rearguard action against an English front five who were just itching to get nastier. Chris Latham tried to make things move from full back, but to no avail. Matt Giteau took on a mountain of work to get Berrick Barnes off the hook. But the dog from the English eight just put them all in the shade, with Andrew Sheridan moving mountains. Nick Easter, still smouldering about the media's sniping over the last few weeks - to be fair, mate, you did lose 36-0 to South Africa - said that after 50 minutes, the pom pack looked their opponents in the eyes, and they were gone.

Of course, Jonny will get the plaudits from the networks and the Aussie papers who want to hang their failure on the force majeure of Wilkinson's boot; but in top-level international rugby, you can't disguise a failure to compete in every single area. The Wallabies have made big strides forward in bolting a pack onto their backs, but are still a couple of years behind the All Blacks. If you can't front up up front (sorry), you might as well get back on the plane.

It's a shame Australia are out, that all that talent behind the pack is going home. George Gregan has played his last game, ditto Bernie Larkham. But they need to find some guts over the next four years, and not just a tub of guts like Matt Dunning. So many big, athletic men but no technique in the tight phases. No excuses, changes will have to be made. But tonight is for England to celebrate a wonder win.

Last word: Scrumbag's Prediction was 43-18. We predicted Ireland 30-15 Argentina last week, and a Wales win over the Fijians... so here's the prediction for tonight: France 0-76 NZ. Fully hedged!

[Yes, we know how to spell Cornish - the Corniche is the boardwalk area of Marseilles just south of Stade Velodrome - couldn't resist the strap line]