England roar back to complete flawless year

It was also their 14th successive victory, equalling the mark set by Clive Woodward’s World Cup winning team in 2002-03. “I don’t think we could have tried to play any worse than we did”, Jones said.

Australia’s try started from a scrum, which was ironic, because the scrum was a hostile subject between the coaches in the buildup.

Though lamenting a second year in succession that has ended in a defeat at Twickenham, after their World Cup final loss to the All Blacks, Cheika is still enthused by the Wallabies’ progress.

Eddie Jones will send England out against Australia with orders to “break them mentally and physically” in Saturday’s climax to the autumn at Twickenham.

“If players don’t challenge themselves they won’t be here and that is the reality of it”, Jones added.

“We’ve got a long way to go before we achieve that but we are hell bent on achieving that”.

“We’ve played the top two teams (New Zealand and England) seven times this year with a whole bunch of new debutants and new players and that’s going to be good even if the outcomes haven’t been good”.

“We got a few penalties but we needed another try to go further ahead”. And we’re hell-bent on achieving that.

Asked what had changed in the second half, Jones replied: “We just had to work that little bit harder. We win this Test and we create history, so we’re aiming to create history”.

But they hit back with four tries, two from centre Jonathan Joseph and one each from wing Marland Yarde and impressive scrum-half Ben Youngs.

That was the icing on England’s 13th win in 13 tests for its first unbeaten year in 24 years, and only the second by a major team in the professional era.

“And the players, all the players speak about is being number one in the world now”. [Owen] Farrell’s an excellent goal kicker so they’re able to acquire points well off penalties etcetera, and then they’ve played with pressure and I think with their ranking at number two in the world. “We are heading in the right direction”.

Jones is not concerned. Just imagine when Billy Vunipola, Maro Itoje and Joe Launchbury are all back available, when they start scrummaging with more devil, when Jack Nowell, Anthony Watson and Elliot Daly are buzzing again or when a fully fit, revitalised Manu Tuilagi shows up. I’d say he’s probably been at 80 percent of his total fitness. “It’s just another Test match. But to beat the third-ranked country in the world 4-0 is fantastic”.

“You’ve got to find a way to regenerate them and get them used to playing global rugby”.

“He is respected for that, he certainly is by me as a former team-mate of his, and I think you saw when he was in Australia that he got a lot of respect”.

How the English were only three points behind was as staggering as how easily Australia were cutting them to shreds before a full house at Twickenham on Saturday.

Victory over the Wallabies extended a winning run dating back to October 10 2015, when an already eliminated England ran in 10 tries against Uruguay to end a disastrous home World Cup.

Cheika refused to use some questionable refereeing from South African whistleblower Jaco Peyper as an excuse and although it was the ninth time in 15 matches he’ tasted defeat this year, he said there were reasons to be positive given the relative inexperience of his squad.