England facing deja vu

Five points down on the hour, their crushing response in that final quarter to run out 31-21 winners really did feel like England storming back to the future. Whether it was a kid like Olly Barkley doing a Jonny Wilkinson impression or a World Cup stalwart like Steve Thompson hitting double top again, player after player reckoned it felt like the day they were reawakened to their responsibilities.

It was like hearing a confessional. Thompson admitted "it sounds bad" but he had momentarily lost his confidence and hunger for the fray before the Ireland match. He had felt flat and tired and the malaise had gripped some of his team-mates too. But on Saturday, he had found his edge again.

To Josh Lewsey, it wasn't so much about rugby as the search for selfrespect. "It's been about being able to look at yourself in the mirror and saying 'have I given everything to wear this England jersey?'" The answer at Twickenam was an emphatic yes.

For although England are playing alarmingly below their standards of last year, seemingly far more vulnerable in defence and shapeless in attack, the way they snuffed out this compelling Welsh challenge in the defining minutes of the game, keeping a vice-like grip on possession and burrowing over for two scores, proved their decline is surely only temporary.

It was Dallaglio's best moment as captain. He couldn't have been deaf to the claims that England had lost the plot against Ireland because there was no Martin Johnson on hand to provide not just a badly-missed mean streak but cool leadership too.

Here, as Hansen put it, was a monkey removed from the team's back. When England went behind, Dallaglio rallied his troops with an exhortation behind the posts and then went off to crunch by example.

"Lawrence was brilliant when we needed him at the end," cooed Thompson. "He started taking the ball up a lot more and winning those extra big yards. Everyone looked to him and he came through at the right moments." Just like Johnno.

On 'Super Saturday', concedes Dallaglio, they will probably have to play for the whole 80 minutes in Paris as they did in that last 20 if they are going to achieve the victory margin of more than seven points, on the dangerous presumption that Ireland will not trounce Scotland by 50, would snatch them the title on points difference.

That would be one hell of an achievement for a team which has been reeling from a serious World Cup hangover. Yet, as Dallaglio's headache began to ease, he reminded us: "We play at our best when the pressure's on." It may still gnaw away at the French that in Sydney they could not say the same.