Brendan Gallagher verdict: Eddie’s made England box-office again
It came when that usually ultra-fair and mild mannered Chris Robshaw fired up and started a free for all with a neck roll tackle that frankly should have resulted in a yellow card.
When Robshaw, celebrating his 50th cap with a MOM performance, is pumping like that you know there must be something special in the air. We saw it again in that extraordinary 22 phase defensive shift which lasted nearly four minutes after Billy Vunipola kicked for touch on 40 minutes but fractionally before the hooter.
Heads could have gone down but instead England's dander went up. Australia were not going to cross the line, by hook or by crook. Again there might have been a yellow card in the passage that followed but that is the cost of such an uncompromising approach. It's all or nothing and England under Eddie Jones live by the sword, die by the sword.
Get your retaliation in first and apologise, if need be, later. If England do start getting players binned and red carded, unless it's something heinous, I doubt if there will be any comeback from the boss. It's Test rugby, whatever it takes.
And again we witnessed it in the second half when England stroppily repelled wave after wave of Australia attacks.
All hands to the pump and frankly whatever it took, so much so that in the end even that most remarkable and competitive of sporting creature – the Aussie sporting male – was left dithering, dumbfounded and defeated. Battered mentally and physically.
Yes England's defence was clever, the line speed excellent and they looked the fittest team out there despite an 11 month season but there was something else going on. England, as great England sides have also done in the past, were off the leash mentally, the devil was in them.
The question of course, is how has this happened? Many of these same players fell well short in terms of diehard combativity and grunt just eight months ago at their own home World Cup which you would assume would be a career highlight.
How have England become such indomitable street fighters, such a bloody uncomfortable and intimidating team to play against? You can talk tough – talk is cheap – but to suddenly become ruthless cold blooded killers is remarkable. What has ignited that extra edge in Robshaw's game and morphed Haskell – another who might have earned a yellow – into a frenzied wrecking ball intent only on causing mayhem.
Dan Cole is another who is reborn, dishing it out at scrumtime rather than stoically taking stuff on the chin. And when he is not worried about infringing and the consequences from management, lo and behold he stops coughing up those irritating penalties that were beginning to mar his game.
Maro Itoje is right up there with them and isn't he an interesting case? He puts himself about physically, lives on the edge and has no qualms about getting involved in verbals – and here lies the key for me.
There is no way, as a young pup coming into the side, that he would be given licence to show his warrior sprit and attitude under Stuart Lancaster.
Lancaster – and a penny for his thoughts right now – was brought in to make England politically correct and sponsor friendly after a couple of incidents at RWC2011 that probably got blown out of proportion and the admittedly strong evidence of discontent among some players with certain coaches.
There wasn't a huge amount wrong with a side that won ten out of 13 games that season but the perception was all wrong, some of the headlines were ugly, and the RFU over-reacted.
England became too touchy feely, too concerned with what people thought about them and scared stiff of doing anything that could remotely be cast in a negative light. That's no way to build a ruthless team of SAS types, the kind of individuals you will need if England are ever to topple the All Blacks and win another World Cup.
Under the sharp-witted Eddie Jones it's different. He really doesn't care that much what people think, he knows that winning big rugby matches is the only thing that counts. I remember a very particular Eddie moment which signified the Jones way back in March when the Samson Lee controversy was at its height.
Warren Gatland and Lee had played it very straight, honourably so, but a contradictory message was coming out from the WRU who were raging. Right at that moment when most would have shut up and let the dust settle Jones made his ‘they don't know whether they are Arthur or Martha' crack. Ouch.
He went straight for the jugular, it made me cringe, but it also exposed Welsh confusion and mixed messages and was illustrative of how Eddie and England intend to go about things.
England are now edgy and exhilarating. No more turning the other cheek on the pitch and platitudes off the park. As well as playing brilliantly England are putting some stick about again and there could be a few controversies ahead.
One thing for sure. It's absolutely riveting to watch. England have bounced back off the ropes and fought their way to number two in the world after finishing the World Cup ranked 8th. They are box office again and it's been a while since you could say that.
