Australia vs England match report: Eddie Jones inspires England to remarkable, historic 3-0 whitewash

Australia 40 England 44

Jamie George is mobbed by his England team-mates (Getty)

The records kept tumbling at the conclusion of England’s history-making tour of Australia, but the statistic that topped all others was the completion of a clean-sweep 3-0 win in the series.

England’s wins in the opening two Tests in Brisbane and Melbourne in the past fortnight had already secured them a first series victory down under at the fifth attempt but they finished the job by keeping a battling Australia at bay and racking up a mixture of well-worked and opportunistic scores.

Owen Farrell was in his now familiar, near-faultless goal-kicking form as the Saracens inside centre converted three of the four England tries by Dan Cole, Mike Brown, Billy Vunipola and Jamie George, and added six penalty goals for 24 points in the match and 66 points on the trip.

The Wallabies had five tries of their own but the muted reception from the biggest ever crowd at the Sydney Football Stadium for Taqele Naiyaravoro’s effort in added time at the end epitomised the clear edge England held throughout the three matches.

England’s Aussie head coach Eddie Jones has pledged to make his adopted country the most dominant in world rugby.

That title is still held unarguably by New Zealand after the double World Cup champions have reinforced their No.1 world ranking with a clear-cut 3-0 series win over Wales this month.

But Jones and captain Dylan Hartley have set about the task of catching the All Blacks with an unblemished run of nine wins out of nine in 2016, based on a strong and highly focussed pack, scoring threat out wide and Farrell’s witheringly accurate boot.

Australia were a revitalised attacking threat with the fit-again playmaker Matt Toomua alongside fly-half Bernard Foley and they led at half-time for the first time in the series, albeit by only 18-17.

Dan Cole scrambles over the line to set England on their way (Getty)

Dan Cole had rumbled to a third Test try on his 65th England appearance, as the white jerseys ran through a training-ground routine from a line-out, with No.8 Billy Vunipola at half-back and Ben Youngs in the midfield.

The influence of backs coach and former Wallaby maestro Glen Ella was evident as Farrell and Brown ran decoy lines and, after nine phases when the handling was not always spot on, Mako Vunipola smashed through on a lovely line, and Youngs used Chris Robshaw as another decoy to give Cole the scoring pass.

That sequence and a bullocking try direct from the short side of a scrum by Vunipola two minutes into the second half showed England adept at spotting and exploiting Aussie weaknesses.

Whereas Brown’s 30th-minute try, featuring a sweet pass by second row George Kruis and a clever chip infield from Anthony Watson, demonstrated the quality of the tourists’ heads-up rugby..

Jones was equally sharp off the field, as he reprised the ruthlessness of his first-Test substitution of Luther Burrell by replacing tyro flanker Teimana Harrison with Courtney Lawes during the first half.

Finally there was a slice of luck thrown in, when a scrappy pass bounced off the left shin of Jamie George and the replacement hooker reacted instantly to score England’s fourth try for a lead of 38-32 with 66 minutes gone.

There were moments of great quality from Michael Hooper and Israel Folau for Australia, and the home side put England’s Maro Itoje under extreme pressure from restarts without being able to prevent the 21-year-old Saracens lock completing an amazing 2015-16 season of 26 starts and 26 wins for club and country.

The deciding score in a madcap Test came when Wallaby scrum-half Nick Phipps stepped through a ruck to tackle Danny Care without the ball. Farrell, in his straight-backed, reliable style, swiped the penalty over from 40 metres and it was 44-35 with a minute of normal time remaining.

Australia have not lost a series 3-0 since 1971 (Getty)

If England have undoubtedly taken advantage of meeting a Wallaby team in partial transition and particularly under-powered behind the scrum, the wondrous results on this tour rightly demand comparisons with the most successful red-rose teams of the modern era.

Will Carling’s triple Grand Slam winners of 1991, ’92 and ’95 had a run of 34 wins in 43 matches from March 1990 to June 1995.

They were outdone by Martin Johnson’s men of June 2000 to March 2004, who won a remarkable 40 of 43 matches - a run that included an England record run of 14 victories from March 2002 to August 2003.

The current team have won 31 of their last 43 matches, but there is an obvious line of demarcation to be drawn since the World Cup disappointment last October – when Hartley, for one, was absent suspended, and Itoje was not selected – and they are the first England XV since Johnson’s to win 10 matches on the spin.

England are doing it with substantial style, too. The 44 points in this match was their second-highest score against one of the southern-hemisphere big three, trailing only the 53-3 win over South Africa during that 14-win record run of Johnson’s Grand Slam and World Cup winners, at Twickenham in November 2002.

There is much to savour, and much to look forward to.