England wary of wounded Australia

England v Australia: Only the blissfully ignorant would describe England v Australia as just another game of rugby union. The Last Night of the Poms? There have been a few of them and the strains of Advance Australia Fair always have a particular resonance at Twickenham.

To listen to the visiting anthem is to feel one of sport’s truly great contests sweeping in like a ripper of a wave at Bondi.

Except that, this year, the currents are flowing from an unfamiliar direction. Last Saturday Australia lost 33-6 to France in Paris, a horrible result for a side beset by injuries and unavailability. Think of the finest Wallaby players – Will Genia, David Pocock, Quade Cooper, James Horwill, James O’Connor, Matt Giteau, Rocky Elsom – and weep. None will be wearing the green and gold this weekend. If Australia do not score a try today, it will officially be the leanest spell since 1899.

Should the English be feeling sorry for them? Joking aside, it is tempting. This is a land where rugby league, Australian Rules, soccer, cricket and surfing claim many promising athletes before rugby union has a sniff. There are also more antipodean couch potatoes these days.

Silk purse

Pity Robbie Deans, the Wallaby head coach, required to make a silk purse from some pretty scraggy raw material. It was some effort for his team to draw 18-18 with the All Blacks last month and expectation levels are low going into this afternoon’s game at Twickenham.

“If I was in England’s shoes I’d be thinking this would be the easiest game of the three they have left,” suggests the former Wallaby Michael Lynagh. “I’d be saying to myself: ‘Australia are a little bit in the doldrums, they’ve got a lot of injuries, this is an opportunity for us to take them. This is the time to beat them and beat them well.’”

Which is as good a reason as any for England to be deeply wary. Rob Andrew, a member of the England team that lost the 1991 World Cup final to the Wallabies at Twickenham and who is now the RFU’s professional rugby director, simply refuses to accept Lynagh’s theory. “It’s nonsense,” he retorts. “When has there ever been an easy game against Australia? Anybody coming to the game, please don’t come thinking it will be. They don’t exist against Australia.”

History does indeed back him up. Of the 10 Tests between the countries since that epic Rugby World Cup final in Sydney in 2003, Australia have won seven. Go a little further back, to the era of Lynagh and Andrew, and Australia lost just twice between 1984 and the end of the century. Small wonder, then, that the English celebrate every victory with such gusto. For today’s players an extended Wallaby slump is a scarcely credible notion.

“Growing up they were on top in almost every sport,” recalls Alex Goode, now England’s fullback but a noted sporting all-rounder in his teens. “Lleyton Hewitt was winning the tennis and we’d usually be spanked in the Ashes. There was an element of jealousy at how they used to stick it to us, with their verbals and their confidence. Now, as far as I’m concerned, we should be the confident ones.”