Where do Martin Johnson's men go from here? So asks Mick Cleary in the Sunday Telegraph

"What conclusions can be drawn from the autumn series? That England are not good enough. That the players are not fit enough, not powerful enough nor skilled enough. They have to be honest with themselves. Their standards have to rise. A lot of faith, and money, has been invested in this generation. It's payback time.

"Is Martin Johnson the man for the job? Yes. It will take him 12 months to get to grips with what needs to happen. Forget about the fact that he hasn't coached. He isn't a coach, he's a manager. That means he has to get the best people in the right places so that they can perform. That applies to coaches as well as players. Johnson has presence, authority and intelligence. He must now show he has both a firm hand as well as a lightness of touch."

New Zealand fans should not get too carried away with their latest achievement according to Peter Bills. Writing in the New Zealand Herald, he finds cause for concern.

"But before the Land of the Long White Cloud drowns in a sea of celebration, it might be worth pointing out a few home truths. Yesterday's win at Twickenham over a hopelessly ill-disciplined England side confirmed that this All Black team is still a work in progress. England, even managing to play most of the match with 14 men, still stayed in touch with the strangely dysfunctional All Blacks for virtually an hour.

"The New Zealanders looked surprisingly vulnerable to pressure and a side willing to play in their faces. For sure, the dam eventually broke. But this was far from the consummate, commanding performance we had expected from the All Blacks at the end of their rugby year."

In an otherwise disillusioning month for the northern hemisphere, Eddie Butler believes Wales and Scotland showed flashes of fulfilling their promise. Read his thoughts in the Observer.

"Scotland look poised - again, it sounds familiar - to break through. The opening game in the Six Nations between themselves and Wales at Murrayfield could be the match of the championship. As long as both ignore the temptation to treat the game as another bout of tribal feuding and remain faithful to a new code of thoughtful improvement.

"Wales finished with the solitary victory, a prize for being the best team in these parts. Shane Williams still glitters, Lee Byrne is confirmed as the best full-back on our continent and Andy Powell is proof that you are never too old to be a hit. Wales are in a good position to kick on and provide most players for the Lions."

Stephen Jones has some harsh words for England manager Martin Johnson following their latest capitulation. Writing in the Sunday Times, he details six areas of immediate concern for the England management.

"His [Martin Johnson] life is about to get even harder. England supporters had every right to expect their team, granted enormous time together and with no expense spared, to win at least three of their four autumn Test matches yet in all three of the encounters with the giants of the TriNations they have been wiped out.

"It is intolerable that anyone should pretend this current England team is the prototype for a happy future. This group of management and players must end now, and Johnson faces some brutal decisions if England are to make any show at all in the Six Nations after Christmas. England managements have ben pleading for patience for nearly six years without respite. They have no right to ask for more."

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, former England coach Dick Best believes New Zealand will teach England a few lessons about quick ball.

"New Zealand tomorrow should provide a valuable lesson to our young inexperienced team in how to produce quick ball. It is the core strength of every All Blacks squad to perform the basics well and this class of 2008 are no different. Pay special attention to the contact skills of the New Zealand forwards and backs at the breakdown.

"Slow ball from rucks has restricted England's advancement, not just this season but for a few years. Instead of fixing the problem, they have resigned themselves to creating pods of players to one side of the ruck and trundling the ball forward into the opposition, who are waiting to smash this juggernaut to the ground. Then the process starts all over again. The object of the exercise is to turn slow ball into quick ball by forward momentum apparently.

"Not only is it a Neanderthal exercise performed at a snail's pace, it is not working. England need to concentrate on getting a ball carrier over the gain line where there is less congestion. They also need to get support players to that ball carrier quicker and on arrival be technically proficient at clearing players from the tackle area."

Writing in the Guardian, former England and Lions lock Martin Bayfield puts the criticism of Steve Borthwick's England captaincy into perspective.

"Steve's case isn't helped by the fact that as a second-row he is compared with his now manager, Martin Johnson, and his captaincy during the victorious World Cup campaign in 2003. But, as is often quoted, there were five or six captains in that team who had responsibility for different aspects of England's game plan.

"Johnson could draw on the abilities of Back, Dallaglio, Dawson, Greenwood, Wilkinson and Hill. If you look at those areas now the players selected have no experience. Take the backline, from Danny Care at scrum-half out to Danny Cipriani or Toby Flood and across the three-quarters; they have hardly any caps between them. Jamie Noon is the exception, perhaps, but he hasn't been a regular in the England team.

"Maybe, the balance is not as good as it could be but let's face facts: we don't have world-class performers at the moment. They could grow into that but at the moment they aren't, and South Africa exposed that cruelly."

Writing in the Independent, Peter Bills tears into the northern hemisphere's willingness to put aside competing on the international stage in favour of raking in the cash.

"This large helping of humble pie at every rugby man's table in the northern hemisphere should herald a re-think, a study of why the game in this part of the world has again been left behind by the southern hemisphere.

"But it won't. When you put weekends in Rome, Paris and London ahead of the actual product on the field, when you study only your own bank balances and ignore the fare presented in front of you, there can be no proper judgement made by the countries of the northern hemisphere. All that matters in this part of the world is money, the filthy lucre. If that is swilling around and the national Unions and clubs are filling their snouts at the trough, then all is well. Nor does it seem to bother the patrons that they're largely watching second grade stuff most of the time.

"At least Wales were in the hunt for 40 minutes in Cardiff. They understood the need for fast, second phase ruck ball and off-loading in the tackle to have any hope of playing the modern game successfully. England, five years to the day after they won the World Cup, weren't at the party at Twickenham against the World Champions for half that time whilst France were inferior in Paris. All this tells a revealing story. The northern hemisphere has been studying its own navel, content with the view, for too long. This autumn Test series has underlined that all is far from well with the game in this part of the world."

Simon Thomas reflects in The Western Mail on another deflating defeat for Wales at the hands of the All Blacks.

"We [Wales] seem to have been receiving lessons from the Kiwis for generations, yet every time they return to these shores we still end up back in the classroom and in need of further revision. This time, the main lesson learned was that rugby is an 80-minute game and you have to perform for the full 80 if you are to have any hope of beating New Zealand.

"In this year’s Six Nations, Wales were able to play for just 40 minutes against England and win, taking the first step on the road to a Grand Slam. But against the All Blacks, that just isn’t enough. They are a different animal."

Writing in the Guardian, Jon Henderson raises some damning criticisms of the new England manager after his young side were out to the sword by a ruthless Springbok side at Twickenham..

""It (the defeat) raised questions about the manager himself. Whether, after all, it was such a good idea to put a man in charge of the national team who has no previous experience of such a task, even at club level, and whose main role since his outstanding playing career ended in 2005 has been as a corporate schmoozer. At times the England performance was little short of clueless, for which Johnson has to take much of the rap.

"After three games in charge, Johnson's record stands at an inconsequential win against the Pacific Islanders two weeks ago and two defeats, the first against Australia last weekend and now this record thrashing by a South Africa side whose scrambled victories against Wales and Scotland had alerted England to the possibility of a morale-bolstering success."

Henderson's Guardian colleague Michael Aylwin was no less scathing in his appraisal.

""Where to start? This was bad. Quite possibly the worst we have seen from an England side in recent times, which is saying something. Come back, Brian Ashton, all is forgiven.

"There are mitigating circumstances, of course. For a start, this is a young and inexperienced side, which is very unlike England, and we cannot suddenly complain about that when for years we were moaning that they were too old.

"But this is a second profoundly sobering defeat this autumn, with the All Blacks still to come, and so far there seems to be a distinct lack of positives being taken from them. If there is inexperience on the field, there is even more of it in the stands. At least everyone on the pitch has played rugby before. The man managing the outfit has never managed anything before. It seems ridiculous to look at the battered brow of Martin Johnson and call it inexperienced, but this is a new challenge for him - and not new as in a new degree of difficulty; new as in he has literally never had a go at it."

Writing in the Observer, Jon Henderson sang the praises of the scrappy Wallabies after their much maligned forward pack delivered a collective black-eye to England.

""Once again Australia and England showed they are two nations deeply divided by a shared passion for getting stuck in to each other on the rugby field. Their collisions - this one scrappy but still fierce - are becoming an autumnal ritual of fists and mellow brutalness, but, given the result, we should on this occasion salute resilience in the face of shuddering intimidation."

Mick Cleary took aim at the lack of discipline from England in The Sunday Telegraph after Martin Johnson's young-guns went missing for much of Saturday's Test.

"Like a preacher from the pulpit, Martin Johnson will urge his players to keep the faith, to believe in the system and in their ability to make it happen. Too many players ditched the game plan in the heat of battle; too many fell by the wayside. Johnson wants believers, not flaky adherents.

"Johnson's frustrated tone made clear that he felt that if his players had obeyed instructions, they would have given themselves a great chance of landing a notable victory. Johnson dismissed the notion, though, that England had already run into their first spot of adversity, or that his side lacked leadership. He was certainly in no mood to lump the blame on captain, Steve Borthwick."

Ian Stafford speculated in The Mail on Sunday about the desire of Martin Johnson to be on the field again as the Wallabies delivered a reality check to his side.

"Reality has arrived in English rugby, served up in huge dollops by an Australian team who exposed Martin Johnson's side for what they are - a talented, young outfit with bags of potential, but with a pack failing to deliver yet again, and a new manager who must have been sorely tempted to rip off his suit, put on his boots and run out into the fray."

Paul Ackford previews England's clash with Australia in the Daily Telegraph and singles out the scrum as once again being a key point of contact.

"England screwed them at Twickenham in 2005 when Baxter was yellow-carded for deliberately collapsing the scrum, and the England forwards pulverised the Australian pack again in the World Cup quarter-final in Marseille when Andrew Sheridan delivered a performance of staggering cruelty.

"In my experience, no other side of Australia's stature and quality has existed at the sharp end of international rugby for so long with such a fundamental flaw to their game, begging the questions: how and why have they got away with it for so long? "

Former England international Stuart Barnes, writing in the Sunday Times, passes judgement on the new-look England following their victory over the Pacific Islanders.

"England played out of their skins against the Pacific Islanders; not in the sense that they were particularly brilliant, but in the way they changed their approach to the game.

"For the past five years the team has essentially been based upon the bludgeon, based around the front five. Yesterday the attacking emphasis switched from the front row to the back three. It was refreshing."

Gregor Paul offers his assessment of the All Blacks' victory over Scotland at Murrayfield in the New Zealand Herald, and it seems that referee Wayne Barnes still won't be receiving any Christmas cards from the Kiwis.

"The All Blacks will leave Edinburgh having failed to answer some key questions.

"They got the job done in terms of producing the desired result but it was only half a performance. The enterprise and resistance of the Scots was a big factor in diluting the quality of the All Blacks' work, as was referee Wayne Barnes who really should be thanked for his contribution and then encouraged into a new career - one that doesn't afford him any authority."

The Springboks produced a great escape against Wales in Cardiff according to Mike Greenaway in the Independent on Sunday, and certainly Peter De Villiers and his side are left pondering both positives and negatives from their opening tour win.

"A ruthlessly efficient first half performance from the Springboks, straight out of their Rugby World Cup text book, was sufficient to see off a plucky but inefficient Wales - but only just.

"This was a sobering slap of reality for the South Africans in this first match of a tour that is unashamedly a precursor to the British and Irish Lions tour in June. The basic lesson learned will be that resting on laurels in test matches is the preserve of the foolish."

Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, Greg Growden reflects on Australia's late win over Italy in Padova, a game apparently decided by the narrowest of margins.

"The Italian protests [following Quade Cooper's late score] were just part of a confusing afternoon, which saw the match played on a field clearly smaller than the usual dimensions. The Wallabies team management had complained before the game that the length of the field was about five metres too short, the in-goal was minimal, and the width of the field had been tightened. But there was nothing anyone could do about that because the field was surrounded by an athletic track."

Writing in the Daily Mail, Peter Jackson previews Scotland's chances against the All Blacks.

"How strange that a nation of inventors who gave mankind the telephone, the steam engine, the television set, penicillin and the raincoat have failed so miserably to devise a way of beating two little islands on the other side of the world. No wonder, therefore, that Graham Henry chose to rest 80 per cent of his first-choice team after breezing into Edinburgh at the start of the projected Grand Slam tour."

England international James Haskell offers an insight into Martin Johnson's effect on the England camp in his blog for the Guardian.

"The younger players can't help but respect him. He's been on the other side of the fence and has seen everything there is to see. The first time I met Martin a few years ago Joe Worsley teased me afterwards, saying I looked nervous, was burbling my words and resembled a rabbit caught in the headlights. He was probably right. I was just 18 and it was a bit of a shock, coming face to face with the man who'd lifted the World Cup.

"You don't look at him and think: "What are you talking about?" His man-management since we've been together has been excellent. There's been no talking for the sake of talking, just a quiet word here or there. He's blunt and direct but I like that sort of honesty."