England - 45, Ireland - 11: Not so much déjà vu as Groundhog Day. Two years ago Ireland travelled with what proved misguided hope, and the record Twickenham defeat proved something of a watershed. Gerry Thornley reports.

Ireland returned on Saturday with supposedly a much-improved team and yet suffered another record defeat. You could get weary of watersheds.

It could almost be described as depressing, for it's as if the last two years - encompassing eight championship wins out of 10 and just five defeats in 13 games - counted for nothing. Which of course isn't true.

In a way it puts that 50-18 defeat two years ago in perspective. As was re-affirmed in Dublin a fortnight ago, big-scoring wins are commonplace in modern rugby and record championship wins for England at Twickenham have been happening more often than not these past three years. It certainly underlines the merit of last October's victory, but for which England would now have won 17 consecutive matches.

Hell hath few furies scarier than a scorned English team. They were both brutal and brilliant, their all-singing, all-dancing brand of rugby elevating the bar yet again. Even coach Clive Woodward was moved to remark that the opening 40 minutes was as good as any period in his previous 50 games in charge.

In truth it was the meat of the match, the 40 minutes either side of the interval, when they really devoured a sorry Ireland, scoring six unanswered tries in a whirlwind spell in which they outscored their visitors 42-3. These were cracking good scores too, the pick of them the second of a killer double whammy just after the first quarter when they scored a length-of-the-pitch try off one of Ireland's aimless restarts.

Jason Robinson and Austin Healey had been the creators in chief, in enabling Kyran Bracken to gallop upfield, swift hands from Mike Tindall, Richard Hill and Joe Worsley putting Ben Cohen over, but the threats came from everywhere. Backs and forwards interchanged seamlessly, the skill and mobility of the England tight five highlighted by Steve Thompson's phenomenal performance.

Jonny Wilkinson's dancing feet, eye for a gap, ability to stretch over the tackle and offload, his distribution and, of course, his error-free kicking, was a masterclass in outhalf play. The passing of Wilkinson and Bracken stretched Ireland out wide in almost the blink of eye.

When Robinson eluded Brian O'Driscoll in the first minute it set off alarm bells, but Bracken and Wilkinson kept the Irish fringe defence guessing too with early snipes. They came at all angles and bewildered the Irish defence close in, out wide (five different Irish right wingers didn't help) and, repeatedly, on the blindside.

Woodward revealed afterwards that England had targeted Ireland's poor blindside defence, where they tend to leave the bigger forwards. But Ireland's defence was also guilty of being punctured close in and of being sucked inside and leaving the wingers frequently facing three or four white shirts.

The players were quick to absolve recently-installed defensive coach Mike Ford of all blame, instead holding their own hands up, though Denis Hickie was Herculean in his try-saving covering. Yet it was uncannily reminiscent of the defensive performance two years ago, when Ireland sought to hold the gain line rather than push up and apply real pressure.

Ever since Munster's Séamus Dennison thundered into Stu Wilson at Thomond Park in 1978, lines in the sand of famous Irish wins have been drawn early on by big hits, such as Anthony Foley's on Fabien Pelous in the win over France last year. There wasn't one on Saturday from an Irishman to remotely rival, say, Wilkinson's unceremonious dumping of Peter Clohessy. It made you pine for the absent Trevor Brennan.

Irish players weren't generally in position to make the big tackles. Rather than pushing up, Ireland were frequently caught flat-footed as the men in white came up at pace from great depth, with no pressure on the ball, to then take a step before contact and offload. Indicative of this was the way Wilkinson danced around, untouched, before running at Mick Galwey, Clohessy and Wallace to offload for Austin Healey to then put Will Greenwood over for England's fifth try.

Ireland's tackling, it has to be said, was both inoffensive not offensive, and the standoffish nature of the defensive alignment was compounded by a mountain of missed tackles in a host of below-par individual performances. The official match statistics credit Ireland with 42 missed tackles and England with one.

It is an indictment of Ireland's defensive effort that they were hardly ever offside despite having only 15 per cent of the ball in the first hour. The root cause was the lineout, where England competed with one or two jumpers every time and made the pressure on Frankie Sheahan's throw tell.

It was ironic and fitting that Ireland's sole attacking foray in nearly the entire first hour, which ultimately ended Geordan Murphy's involvement, came from a steal on the England throw. The lineout is king in the modern game, and against a rampant England at Twickenham Ireland's lineout simply didn't give them a chance of even getting into the game.

Nor did their restarts. Ireland may as well have placed theirs on the English 22 and invited them to start all over again. By contrast, Wilkinson's hanging short restarts up the middle were inviting targets for chasing team-mates.

Ireland had defended these alertly against Wales, but aside from being beaten to the first touch in the air, where O'Driscoll was usually a lone target, Ireland were gobbled alive on the ground from the deflections. Some coaching from Gaelic football midfielders on sweeping up dropping balls wouldn't go amiss.

As good as England were, Ireland aren't as bad as they looked.