England must learn from the Aussie revival

“Australian teams have this ability and are a quality team who were more clinical on the day and took points when they were on offer. Confidence always takes a dent when you lose games like this and we’re a very ambitious bunch of guys.

“The more pressure that builds on you the more you want to fight back and one of the hallmarks of this team is the ability to fight for each other.

“It’s hugely disappointing to have camped in the Australian 22 and not come away with points and in these kinds of matches it’s important to keep chipping away and build a score. That cost us the game.

“Australia were very clinical and streetwise at the breakdown. Against South Africa in the summer we learned a lot about how to play the big Southern Hemisphere nations and let’s hope we can produce a performance we can proud of on Saturday.”

For Lancaster, the focus this week will be on selection to face a hugely physical South African team, who defeated Scotland 21-10 with forward driving play. The two key areas that must be addressed are a lack of guile in mid-field and bulking up the pack.

There are concerns about Gloucester No8 Ben Morgan and his defensive work but England need his ball carrying to get over the gain line and that will mean sacrificing Thomas ­Waldrom’s handling skills.

There is also a case for including Joe Launchbury, the 21-year-old London Wasps forward, at blindside flanker rather than lock to add another line-out option and increase the weight of the pack. With Manu Tuilagi, England’s try scorer against Australia, ignoring support runners, it is time to put him onto the left wing and install Jonathan Joseph the London Irish centre, alongside Barritt.

Lancaster must make these big calls to solve some of the problems created by the Wallabies and admitted: “We want performances and execution that can win at the highest level and we didn’t quite achieve that.”

Sir Clive Woodward, England’s 2003 Cup-winning head coach, spelt out the challenge to the team’s current boss.

He said: “England have to understand international rugby is a very tough business. He [Lancaster] has to pick a tougher team. International rugby is a tough, uncompromising game and you have to win those battles.”

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