England’s final group match put the hosts in the rare position of a close encounter – but they passed the test in the end
You can measure a good team by how many they’ve won, or you can measure them by how many they might have lost but didn’t. The Red Roses are well ahead on the first count, they’re on a 30-match winning streak now, and have suffered just the one, solitary, defeat in the last six years.
But it’s less clear what their other tally is. Their one-point victory over France in the final match of this year’s Six Nations was the only time they’ve had to confront the possibility of losing in the last few months, and even in that match they led from start to finish.
Which made the first half of this victory against Australia the most intriguing 40 minutes they’ve had in a long while.
Australia started fast, and hard. They had two advantages. One was that they needed to play well to make sure of their place in the quarter-finals, if they lost by 76 or more they would be out of the tournament, and the other that they were coming into this match off the back of a fiercely competitive Test against the USA, who were now level with them on points in Pool A.
