After finally beating Australia 25-14 Down Under, England can lie back briefly and dream of the real deal, says Robert Kitson.
It is a long time, 37 years to be precise, since an English national side in any sport have earned the level of respect due to Clive Woodward and his ground-breaking team. Most self-respecting Australians will recoil in horror at the realisation but, like it or not, the burning issue is now less whether England can win the World Cup this autumn as who can stop them.
Even Woodward, before flying to Perth to acquaint his squad with their initial World Cup base, accepts that away wins over New Zealand and now Australia on successive weekends have propelled his side across that invisible line which separates hopeful travellers from the real deal. Not since Alf Ramsey's boys trotted out at Wembley Stadium in July 1966 has the bush telegraph crackled with quite such anticipation.
Because, as well as historical satisfaction, this month's three wins on the road in the Southern Hemisphere have given Woodward a platform beyond even his wildest dreams. There is an old Australian horse-racing adage that Melbourne Cups are not so much won in November as in the spring, and England, by anyone's standards, are looking the sleekest of contenders.
The only lingering questions have been posed before: have they peaked too soon, and can they get even better? In Woodward's view the answers remain, respectively, "no" and "yes", because his men are at the end of a punishing season and will be "fresher and sharper" by October. If 13 wins in a row also implies a consistency that is unlikely to vanish overnight, Woodward is leaving nothing to chance.
No matter that all concerned would love to have headed home yesterday instead of flying to Western Australia for, among other things, medical tests and a tour debriefing.
"Nobody wants to get on a plane home more than myself but this is the right thing to do," Woodward explained. "I'd like to see Wimbledon, the sun and the kids at sports day, but you have to prioritise things. When we arrive in October we'll get off the plane knowing exactly what we're about."
Before then, a squad enlarged to 30 players will reconvene on July 21st, prior to away games against Wales in Cardiff and France in Marseille in August to identify the correct fringe candidates before a final Twickenham date with the French on September 6th.
Woodward says he has inked in 15 names and has 26 players contesting the other 15 places, but England are already light years ahead of where they were for the last World Cup four years ago.
"In 1999, it was a case of fingers crossed. This time around it won't be," said Woodward, completely vindicated in his desire not to wrap his key men in cotton wool. "If we'd lost these two games we'd have had a different set of problems to resolve. Now we can look ahead confidently to meeting up in July. My job is to give this group of players every chance to be successful. When I was playing for England it never happened. Now we've got something special in place."
His only blind spot is Eddie Jones. If the Wallaby coach called a press conference to say the sky was blue, Woodward would suspect a plot to influence local meteorologists. In his moment of triumph, though, Woodward could not resist a few extra verbal sideswipes, irked by Jones's relatively mild pre-match request for Irish referee David McHugh to be strict at the breakdowns.
"He obviously spends more time planning his press conferences than he does his training sessions," retorted Woodward, equally unimpressed to hear Jones claiming England are on a five-year plan which explains why they are currently ahead of their rivals.
"That's a coach trying to justify his job for a few more years," Woodward added. "It's nonsense. We're on a three-month programme to win the World Cup. My experience of this group of players is that the greater the pressure the better they are."
The tour report on almost every player will certainly be favourable when Woodward sits them down this week. Victory over the New Zealand Maori set the tone and competition for places is now fierce.
If the front row of Phil Vickery, Steve Thompson and Trevor Woodman starred against the Wallabies, so did Graham Rowntree and Jason Leonard in different circumstances the week before against New Zealand. Kyran Bracken hauled his way back up the scrum-half pecking order and Lawrence Dallaglio was back to something near his best.
The player of the tour, though, was undoubtedly the captain, Martin Johnson. The siege of Wellington, when England repelled all invaders after being reduced to 13 men, brought out the best in him as a leader, but against the Wallabies he was frequently staggering with exhaustion.
Afterwards he was chosen to give a random drug sample, but what actually drives Johnson on cannot be bought over or under the chemist's counter.
"It's a mental thing," he replied on Saturday night. "If you want to feel tired you'll be tired, if you want to get on with it you'll get on with it."
By October, though, legs and minds will be fresher. As one prominent member of the England camp suggested: "If we can win in New Zealand and Australia and still feel we can play better, that's not bad, is it?"
In the meantime Woodward's entire squad have earned the right to lie back, relax and think of anything but England for a week or two.
Guardian Service
