IN ALL honesty, I expected England to win all along, and I really didn’t think it would be so close. This was a classic contest, a great bruising physical encounter between two sides who were very evenly balanced. For the match to be won by a champion like Jonny Wilkinson with 20 seconds to go in extra-time made it a great final.
At times the pitch resembled the sort of First World War battlefield onto which the English generals used to send out the ANZACS.
It had been said for ages that it would be a boring game, with England relying on an old man’s style of playing for
field position and waiting for penalties, but they were much more exciting than I thought they would be.
Nevertheless, you have to consider that the rugby gods are clearly English as they delivered the rain which suited them. At national anthem time, you couldn’t tell whether Nathan Sharpe was crying because of the passion of playing for his country or because he knew what the downpour meant for Australia’s chances.
The weather clearly had a huge effect on the match, with all sorts of mistakes being made. The pressure also got to the players. You could see it on the faces of the two hookers each time they threw in at the line-out. Brendan Cannon is a product of the school I taught at for 17 years, and I’ve seen that look on his face many times - when you see it, you know you are in trouble.
The Aussie press had been coming down hard on the English squad, trying to get at them psychologically because they knew about the Wallabies’ inadequacies. It didn’t work.
England had the winners in the team on the day. They just couldn’t face going home without the trophy.
Obviously, I’m disappointed like every other Australian, but I’m not gutted because it was a great match. It is a case of ‘if only’ for Australia - if only they could have got the scrum right, if only the lineouts had been right, what could have happened?
And if only Australia had Richard Hill - every country should have a Richard Hill. He was everywhere.
By contrast, Wendell Sailor was a million-dollar superstar who played like a two-bob bunny. To me the deciding factor was the last ten minutes of the first half of normal time when Sailor was floating around like a butterfly instead of making an impact.
That being said, Lote Tuqiri and Mat Rogers played well. Elton Flatley missed a couple of kicks but kept his nerve under incredible pressure. These days, however, you have to have a kicker who scores with more than 90 per cent of his kicks.
Matt Dawson won the battle with George Gregan, but the captain did not play badly, while Stephen Larkham was obviously affected by his face injury. I am no fan of Matt Giteau and it showed when Larkham reappeared that Australia immediately got their structure back.
The referee was fair and made a very brave call for Australia to equalise with Flatley’s penalty in normal time. At the same time, if Wilkinson had not struck the winning drop goal when he did, Andre Watson would have penalised Australia anyway. It was clear as the end neared that a drop goal or penalty would determine the winner, and that’s what happened.
Australia paid the price for complacency after 1999. Straight after that win they expected the performances would keep going, but that did not happen. Now Australia have to start planning for four years’ time.
Australia must realise, for instance, that they have to work on building a front row for the next tournament, and find a new hooker because neither Jeremy Paul nor Brendan Cannon will be around.
Australia haven’t got the coaching structure right, and Eddie Jones has only survived as coach as long as he has because there is no-one coming through to replace him.
There is another problem with Australia’s planning - they can’t keep going to rugby league for their stock of players. They must smarten up their ideas about recruitment. What message does it say to a young winger when the selectors keep going for rugby league imports, particularly as big a goose as Wendell Sailor?
In the meantime we Australians will have to take this defeat on the chin. That’s the way we are. Australia did very well to reach the final, but now we and every other nation have to learn from the way that England - the best team in the world - prepared and played.
Here in Britain I fear it’s going to be 1966 all over again. It’s all right for me, I can go home to Australia for a break, but judging by the way the broadcasters were talking, you Scots are still going to be hearing about this other World Cup victory in 37 years’ time!
