Watching England run amok against all bar Ireland in this season's championship, it's been hard to reconcile this image with the constrained, conservative team which was drop-goaled out of the World Cup by Jannie de Boer scarcely a year and a half ago. Clive Woodward remains the coach, and Brian Ashton was as much part of the ticket that day, while the bulk of the team hasn't changed either. But all else has.
That fateful day Woodward did, one senses, lose his nerve and went against all his coaching instincts in recalling Paul Grayson and dropping Jonny Wilkinson. One senses too that the experience, compounded by last-day failures to close out grand slams against Wales at Wembley and Scotland in Murrayfield, made him resolve to never err on the side of caution again. If he was going to go down, he would go down with all guns blazing.
There's also a moral in the RFU not sacking Woodward, much like the IRFU not firing Warren Gatland after the last World Cup. England have won 12 of their ensuing 14 tests, winning their last eight in a row, and Ireland have lost only four of their subsequent 12 tests, winning five of their last six championship games.
It's not as if football especially hasn't repeatedly shown us that men in suits (buoyed by an impatient media) flexing their muscles and sacking coaches/managers more often than not stunts a team's development.
In any event, England (and Ireland for that matter) resorted to a wider, more ambitious running game. The investment in two midfield playmakers, Wilkinson and Mike Catt, continued apace. But the real benchmark of the more expansive policy was the promotion of the inexperienced Bath full back cum winger Iain Balshaw to the English number 15 jersey for this championship.
Matt Perry, after all, had been doing grand and many a coach in Woodward and Ashton's positions would have been tempted to keep him there. Indeed, as the forthcoming Lions' selection will show, he's probably the second best full-back in these isles. Undeterred by Balshaw's defensive handling errors with high or rolling balls, Woodward and co retained faith in him.
It's not even that he's been England's second highest scorer in the championship with five tries already. The temptation is to regard the last line of defence as the least important, given the damage will probably have been done by the time tackling questions are asked of the full-back. However, on Saturday, Balshaw saved at least one and probably two tries thanks in the main to his pace. You just can't beat it, at times literally.
BALSHAW has already become an emblem for the attacking nature of this team and, though records tumble a mite too easily in the modern era of high scores and try feasts, even so, England assuredly set a record for, well, breaking records.
Wales 15, England 44: England's biggest winning margin and highest score in Cardiff, while Will Greenwood's hat-trick of tries was the first by an English player in Cardiff for 108 years.
England 80, Italy 23: England set new landmarks both for the biggest win in the history of the championship and the highest score in the championship. Jonny Wilkinson's individual 35-point haul, was also a championship best, beating Ronan O'Gara's 30 points against the same opposition last season.
England 43, Scotland 3: England recorded the biggest winning margin, highest score and most tries (six) in the 130-year history of the fixture.
England 48, France 19: England posted their highest ever score against France. During the game the 21-year-old Wilkinson also eclipsed Rob Andrew's English points scoring record of 396, taking 27 matches to get there compared to his mentor's 71.
Tournament records: With one match still to play, England have broken the championship record for most points with 215 (surpassing their own landmark of 183 last year) and most tries with 28 (already seven more than Wales's record of 21 set in 1910, which England eclipsed in three matches).
Wilkinson has also improved his own record of 78 points in the championship, set last year, by two, while his haul of 24 conversions shreds the previous record of 14 set by Paul Grayson in 1998.
Hats off then. Aside from the pace and high skills running through such a compelling, interchangeable force, their decision-making in possession, in support and in seemingly never committing too many men to rucks, has improved with each passing game.
As last Saturday showed, England are a more composed and patient side now, as well as being infinitely fitter than their French counterparts, though that is unsurprising after some European Cup eye-opening.
Aside from the huge coaching staff around Woodward, the RFU have also invested heavily in the players' conditioning. Matt Dawson revealingly admits that the English players were shattered when the World Cup came around two years ago but that the work done then is paying off now.
Alas, age-old superiority complexes die hard and Stuart Barnes also revealed that a member of the English coaching team said to him last week:
"Who cares about a Grand Slam? We are after the World Cup."
England are, undoubtedly, the most credible Northern hemisphere challenge to the southern hegemony. But, in fact, you'd seriously wonder whether the nucleus of this team will be around in Australia and New Zealand come 2003 to the extent that, say, the current Irish team will be.
Especially given the way the English structures contrive to flog their leading players.
gthornley@irish-times.ie
