England were exposed as the young, inexperienced side that they are, lacking leadership and direction. Doubts remain as to whether Steve Borthwick is the right man for the captain’s armband, the second row is clearly a problem area and the back row does not yet function as it needs to in order to catalyse Cipriani’s backs.

Australia were supposed to be the weakest of the big three teams to visit Twickenham this autumn, so it’s only going to get harder for Martin Johnson’s men.

England weren’t bad though, they didn’t cough up the ball easily at the breakdown and the game ended one try all. As a southern hemisphere fan I tend to think tries are important, we can get all excited about the scrum but at the same time we only meaningfully breached the English line once.

I like the look of the English in the future, the selections seem exciting, especially Cipriani. I look forward to our next test.

We convicts are supposed to be the ones who know nothing about scrummaging, but from long experience of watching the Wallaby pack on roller skates, even if in the furthest row of the stands and lubricated by numerous pints of Old Speckled Hen or whatever, we can tell when a pack is getting their heads shoved up their arse. The Pommy pack being wheeled at will and then turned into road kill in the second half could truthfully be said not to have achieved “dominance in the scrum”.

I know we are tempting the fates here. Saturday’s Wallaby scrum performance may turn out to be like Hayley’s comet, seen once in a lifetime, but it is something to be savoured. I am worried, though, that Deans has decided to pull the front row apart for the France match. One truly dominant performance and he decides to rest one of the props! Is that arrogance or just the fact that Deans played as a full back?

Hard to swallow, but we just don’t have the quality. Cipriani is all promise and way too many errors. Noon always fails to deliver and Sackey is a fumbler. We’re better off than last year when Andrew picked the Newcastle team but jeez with this team we’re in for a hiding against the AB’s…

I’ve got no problem with that Ozzie gameplan, but do the Ozzie fans take offence to it?

No not at all, the gameplan has to be written to the opponents and the rules in place, playing England under the bastardised choose your own ELV’s the penalty kicks are pretty much mandatory.

That said, I’d have preferred the game to have been played under the ELV’s then we could have taken the scrum option and really converted our set piece advantage into 7 pointers.

That said, the back line will only get better with practice and if all we can muster in the opposition 22 is the same old series of pick and goes, they’ll never get any better. Even when we had penalty advantage and therefore absolutely nothing to lose from trying something different, we didn’t.

I thought Cipriani did his best but we have rushed him back before he’s ready. With all the injuries at 10 we had to have him back in the squad (otherwise it was Hodgson – NOOOOO!), but he is not back to full fitness to my mind, and with that he’s not as confident as he was before the injury. I’ve every faith in him getting back to his best, but I’d like to see Flood given a go at 10 and get Cipriani absolutely right for the 6N.