Australia 10 England 12

Even before the quarter-final kick-off, England succeeded in distracting the Wallabies.

At this World Cup, the custom has been for the two teams to slowly walk onto the field side by side behind their national flags.

However, England would have none of that. They broke ranks, running and prancing onto the field, while the Wallabies watched in bewilderment, wondering what they should do. They continued their slow, deliberate march to what was inevitably their premature World Cup death.

England's aim to completely hoodwink their opponents continued for the next hour-and-a-half as England showed off the best of British Bulldog spirit to crush a team who at best resembled disorientated Chihuahuas.

Admittedly England should be praised for their purpose and passion, but their task was made so much easier by Australia being out of touch in virtually every area of the game, especially in the forward battles, where their inadequacies were again brutally exposed.

It wasn't exactly Twickenham 2005 all over again, but it wasn't that far behind in the humiliation stakes, with the Australian scrum again shown up short of the required international standard.

And the Wallabies cannot complain about the Irish referee, Alain Rolland. Right from the start it was clear Wallabies loose-head prop Matt Dunning, who was up against the wily England captain Phil Vickery, was struggling to hold up the scrum and should have been penalised when he dropped it several times. Instead, for some bizarre reason, Australia received the penalties, perhaps to get a charitable early lead.

Then the other side of the Australian scrum started to go wonky, with England's loose-head prop Andrew Sheridan, a deserved man of the match, succeeding in pounding his opponent, Guy Shepherdson. Wallabies hooker Stephen Moore also appeared to be affected by it all, because whenever he was able to get his head out of the scrum, he found himself making mistakes. He wasn't alone.

In an overall dreadful performance, each of the Wallabies would have to admit there was at least one moment during the game when he made a complete mess.

All over the field the Wallabies were ordinary. Their work at the breakdown was abominable, with many players clearly intimidated by England's desire to stomp all over them. Several Australian forwards were troubled by the intense pressure, giving away stupid penalties.

Their back-line play had no formation and never looked authoritative. They were unable to get their phase play going. What were assumed to be big, lumbering England forwards outpaced their supposedly fitter opponents.

Virtually every Wallaby was way off his game. George Gregan's last appearance in the green and gold was hardly memorable, but there were plenty of other Wallabies who will never watch a replay, with Moore, Shepherdson, Dunning, second-rower Dan Vickerman, back-rowers Rocky Elsom and George Smith and winger Adam Ashley-Cooper also suffering embarrassing moments.

If England were a good team, they would have won by at least 20 points. That they were just so-so, and victorious, shows how mediocre the Wallabies were.

Making Australia's dismal performance even more staggering was that the man who was supposed to slay the Wallabies didn't. It was hardly a marvellous day with the boot for Jonny Wilkinson - he missed penalty and field goals attempts - but he made up for it elsewhere by distributing to his outer backs extremely well. His passing to his outer supports was far better than that of the opposite side. The Wallabies often seemed uncertain about what they were trying to do.

Then again, they were unable to get enough possession to be a threat. At least they made full use of their only constructive first-half attack when quick hands, after a traditional midfield bust from skipper Stirling Mortlock, gave Lote Tuqiri enough space to score his first and only try of the tournament.

Tuqiri at last showed his full finishing skills, bustling his way through his opponent, Josh Lewsey, to give Australia a 10-6 half-time lead.

But in the second half, that all dried up.

In his farewell appearance as Wallabies coach, John Connolly arrived at the media conference struggling to make sense of what he had just seen.

"Our scrum got into strife, and England controlled the breakdown very strongly," he said. "From that we never got any momentum.

"I thought we looked dangerous at times, but at no stage did we control the breakdown in any shape or form. A lot of the ball we got was on the back foot, and we lost a fair bit of composure at times. We had chances to do things, but we became flustered and made uncharacteristic errors."

Mortlock, sitting next to Connolly, looked shattered.

When asked for his feelings about departing the World Cup so early, it took Mortlock some seconds before he replied.

"Bitterly disappointed," he said. "It's an extremely dull, quiet change room at the moment, and understandably so.

"You have to credit England for how they attacked the breakdown, which didn't allow us to get in any rhythm in our attack."

Adding to his distress, Mortlock even missed being part of the post-match Wallabies huddle, as he was called away to do the official on-field media interview.