How apt that on a day when Britain was drenched with rain, the Wallabies were reminded the great rugby divide between southern hemisphere adventure and northern hemisphere attrition still exists, so writes the Sydney Morning Herald's Greg Growden.
"After the early week enthusiasm for the International Rugby Board report on this year's Tri Nations, which showed the tournament had enlivened the game through fast, expressive ball-in-hand play, the naysayers from the north produced their usual moaning over whether it was truly Test rugby.
The statistics show the number of tries in the Tri Nations nearly doubled in a year, the number of passes increased by 35 per cent, the kicks out of hand dropped dramatically and the average ball-in-play time increased by 2½ minutes a Test. The figures didn't impress those northerners who have a stronger passion for defence-oriented dogfights dominated by rolling mauls, territorial kicking, an emphasis on the set piece and repeated attempts to slow the ball down at the breakdown. It is not a recipe for spectator satisfaction.
As the British press aptly put it, England defence coach Mike Ford was reading from rugby's Old Testament when he reacted to Tri Nations statistics by complaining: ''There were three games in the Tri Nations that produced an average of 77 points and that, for me, isn't Test rugby.''
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