Eddie Jones locks eyes on NZ’s top spot

Australia gave the home side a stern test in the first half, rushing in to a 0-10 lead before England pegged them back to 13-16 at half time.

Australia who won the last time they played at Twickenham when Bernard Foley nearly single handedly kicked them out of the World Cup last October. You can’t help but think that if they break that record in the Six Nations next year, they would fancy their chances against the All Blacks and even become favourites for the 2019 Rugby World Cup.

As England took a lap of honor, the Wallabies took their lumps in the same dressing room in which they finished 2015, after losing the Rugby World Cup final.

The Wallabies coach believes the English side deserves the world number two spot and is the Northern Hemisphere’s team to beat.

But they didn’t manage to go through an entire calendar year unbeaten and they are now one match away from beating the 13 match unbeaten run of Woodward’s charges.

“We’re hell-bent on achieving that”.

“We were awful the first 20 minutes”, Jones said.

One thing is for sure if they want a place in history they will have to start the game much better than they did against The Wallabies.

“First half all told, all they got was the drop ball and toe through for the [Jonathan Joseph] try”, Cheika said.

Despite conceding a second try to Australia, England capped its relentless pressure with a fourth try and second gift for center Jonathan Joseph.

England clawed back with penalties and an opportunist try, coming from a Kepu pass along the ground hacked upfield by Owen Farrell and scooped up and scored by center Jonathan Joseph.

Somehow Eddie Jones’ men trailed by only 10 points after an utterly one-sided opening spell that saw wing Sefa Naivalu cross and the Wallabies foiled on two more occasions by desperate final-stand defending. They should look to always take some points from any time spent in England territory instead of being fixated on scoring tries.

When asked if he would meet Cheika after today’s climax to the autumn series, Jones said: “Handshakes, cold beers, all friends at the end? It’s just another game of Test footy”. They are going to be more competitive than they were in Australia.

Cheika has often labelled a year in which Australia fielded 13 debutants as “transitional” and he was in confident mood despite Saturday’s loss.

“I’m very positive about the team as a whole”. I don’t need to search for a bit in the game here and there.

England team celebrate with the trophy after the Old Mutual Wealth Series match.

The Wallabies’ outstanding back row will make his final worldwide appearance until June 2018 after choosing to take a six-month break sandwiched between two stints at Japanese club Panasonic Wild Knights. There are some supporting the Wallabies who have this optimism, given that their team is playing much better rugby than they did in the last Rugby Championship, especially the better form of flyhalf Bernard Foley and centre Tevita Kuridrani.

But this tour also featured a Test against France and Cheika agreed that five internationals in as many weeks was too heavy a schedule.

We finished our season previous year in the same dressing room after a loss so we’ve had two disappointing finishes to ’15 and ’16. “Five Tests are hard but I don’t think that had anything to do with the performance tonight”.