Australia 34 England 3: England's intended new era began in worryingly familiar fashion with a sound beating by a Wallaby side showing only glimpses of their best form. Instead of a morale-boosting victory, the first outing for Andy Robinson's reshuffled coaching team exposed several of the same old faults and the men in white ultimately ended up chasing only the ghosts of their glorious World Cup triumph of 2003.
If the margin was less than the 51-15 stuffing in Brisbane two years ago, the omens for Saturday's second Test in Melbourne are not encouraging. Heading to Australia without a platoon of first-choice players was always a risk and any similarity with the World Cup final was limited to the venue. England have now lost four successive Tests and, until they start converting the chances they do carve out, there will be no end to the drought.
At least three potential first-half try-scoring opportunities were squandered, prompting Robinson to renew his call for England to be more ruthless as they seek to climb back up Test rugby's greasy pole.
Australia were desperately rusty for the first hour but still ended up with three tries despite spilling more balls than England's cricketers fumbled at Lord's last month. Whenever Pat Sanderson's team started something promising, they were equally profligate.
Admittedly, it took an inspired intervention from George Gregan, who snaked out an arm to hold up a diving Iain Balshaw, to deny the tourists the lead just before the half-hour, but a lack of composure was to blame for poor passes by Tom Varndell and Sanderson which cost two chances.
With Olly Barkley also missing a penalty from point-blank range, Sanderson argued his side should have led by 17 points at half-time. That was wishful thinking, but Robinson shared his captain's frustration. "The opportunities we did create we bombed," he sighed.
England are at least thinking smarter following the arrival of Brian Ashton, John Wells and Mike Ford. All three starting debutants, Peter Richards, Magnus Lund and Alex Brown, had their moments, and Chris Jones, when he came on, added thrust to a forward effort led by Sanderson.
AUSTRALIA: Latham (Rathbone, 69 mins); Gerrard, Mortlock, Rogers (Shepherd, 70 mins), Tuqiri; Larkham, Gregan (capt; Valentine, 75 mins); Holmes (Baxter, 73 mins), McIsaac (Paul, 50 mins), Blake, Sharpe, Vickerman, Heenan (Chisholm, 49 mins), Smith, Elsom (Waugh, 75 mins). Tries: Latham, Gerrard, Blake. Cons: Mortlock 2. Pens: Mortlock 5.
ENGLAND: Balshaw; Varndell, Tait, Catt (Noon, 73 mins), Voyce; Barkley (Goode, 63 mins), Richards (Walshe, 74 mins); Rowntree (Payne, 63 mins), Mears (Chuter, 57 mins), White, Deacon, Brown (Jones, 57 mins), Lund (Worsley, 57 mins), Moody, Sanderson (capt). Pen: Barkley.
Referee: A Lewis (Ireland)
