Will Greenwood recalled the date, October 20th. It was the day that Ireland wrecked England's Grand Slam dreams with a 20-14 victory at Lansdowne Road. In the build-up to Saturday's Six Nations Championship game at Twickenham, the English management and players played down any notion of a group looking for revenge.

So it wasn't a motivating factor? The England centre laughed, exclaiming succinctly: "We lied." It wasn't the reason why Clive Woodward's team triumphed so emphatically on Saturday but it will have given his players immense satisfaction. They repaid Ireland in spades.

The English players deserved to be euphoric in the aftermath and manfully though they struggled to keep that emotion in check - to a man regaling their interviewers with thoughts on a less than productive last 30 minutes - they had earned the bragging rights.

Greenwood's sense of humour elevated his thoughts above the mundane, particularly as he outlined how it had nearly killed Austin Healey to give him a scoring pass for the centre's second try.

"We went into the game level on tries and then I managed to get one to put me ahead. He (Healey) would rather have given the ball to anyone else but me. He was gutted. You could see him looking left and right before putting me over."

It lightened the tone of what was a businesslike evaluation of a clinically efficient and ruthless England victory. Jonny Wilkinson, the fulcrum of that success, deservedly drew praise from all and sundry, none more so than his coach. Woodward enthused: "I think he took his performance to another level and that's down to hard work. He was outstanding."

Woodward expressed his satisfaction in measured tones: "I was delighted with the performance. We trained very well during the week from the players to the coaches. To see it come to fruition out there was very, very pleasing. That 30, 40, 50 minutes was some of the best rugby since I've been in charge."

Inevitably he faced questions about why England had failed to sustain the sheer excellence of the opening 50 minutes.

"The first 50 minutes was wonderful but after that we lost a lot of ball in contact. Ireland can take credit from the way they played in the last 30. They didn't allow us to control the game.

"We did a lot of homework. We did think that there were certain parts of the game, that if we got right, they (Ireland) were vulnerable. Even in the first half I was getting pretty annoyed because we lost ball in contact situations and there was some aimless kicking."

Captain Martin Johnson outlined his thoughts on England's dominance: "The wide game was really working for us and we exploited that. At times we got a bit too lateral but we still managed to go in at the interval scoring 31 points. "Once we went wide initially they expected us to go wide again and Jonny (Wilkinson) exploited the gaps closer in. There were spaces out wide as well as we thought there would be."

Forwards coach Andy Robinson had especial praise for hooker Steve Thompson who had a magnificent afternoon in all facets of the game and went on to point out that people should not have been surprised at the handling, angles of running and support play of the forwards as those are traits that are demanded of them.

By virtue of their victory England find themselves topping the world rankings. Woodward was quick to put it into context.

"It's better than being second. You don't win any prizes for statistics in world rugby. Yes, it's nice but I'm more interested in our performances."

Almost sheepishly, a voice asked the England coach to ponder Ireland's current standing. "They're a good team, they'll bounce back. Every team has setbacks. The true sign of a great team is to be able to bounce back and I'm sure they will."