Moody proves magnificent

Autumn Internationals: New flanker's dynamism usurps the old triumvirate

What a way to win your 50th cap. Victim of the rotation of the back row – England's most competitive position in the long haul to next year's World Cup – Lawrence Dallaglio was straining at the leash to get stuck in from his thoroughly unfamiliar position on the bench. When the Wasps captain did get a chance to impress, it was as a blood replacement for his old mucker Richard Hill, a team-mate and friend from Under-21 days with England but now also a rival.

England conceded 15 points in the 10 minutes Dallaglio spent on the field, and that number of backward steps was not the way for the former England skipper to advance his case in this most unforgiving of arenas.

So Dallaglio got his half-century, which for an Englishman against Australia would be greeted ecstatically in certain sports. But on this occasion it was only a cause for frustration, and the mighty No 8 from the previous week's win over the All Blacks retreated whence he came as the bloodied but unbowed Hill returned. In the build-up to the match Dallaglio had warned: "I don't think it's the last you've heard of me just yet." After this performance, he will have to bide his time.

England had chosen to go with Lewis Moody and Neil Back as orthodox blind- and openside flankers; Moody jumping at five in the line-out, Back at the tail. And they combined to launch Hill for the clean take that led to England's first try, by Ben Cohen. The trio was intact at the final whistle, after Hill, already strapped to protect a head wound he picked up with Saracens, required attention to a gash on the bridge of his nose.

It is just one hazard of a tough trade, and if uncertainty of selection is another of them for the long-standing Back-Hill-Dallaglio triumvirate, so be it. Dallaglio was the last of them to reach the 50-cap mark – 18 months out with injury, during which he made a single appearance against Italy, held him up – and Moody, of Leicester, has taken full advantage. The tearaway Tiger has started England's last half-dozen Tests.

He has many singular attributes, not least an ability to control body and mind even when the latter is being projected headlong, parallel to the turf, like some human hovercraft. This dynamic facet of Moody's play was brilliantly demonstrated time and again yesterday. He has the flexibility of a gymnast but the muscle to go with it, and one octopus-like claim of the ball with 10 minutes left as England protected their lead was superlative.

If anything so obviously separates him from his club-mate, Back, it is the 10 years between their ages. Back was born pre-decimal; his currency has always been at its highest in the dog-dirty exchanges of ruck and maul. Pace, by his own admission, was never top of his hit list, whereas outperforming all-comers on bleep tests, and relentlessly covering the seven to eight kilometres he reckons to manage in a Test match, emphatically were.

When he still had a day job advising on pensions, Back prepared for old age like no other. From working out in his mum's attic to subsequently embracing full-time rugby, he was determined not to be outdone on fitness. But there is one thing even Back admits cannot be trained away. In his autobiography, Size Doesn't Matter (a small clue there, if you'll pardon the pun, to the battle for selection Back had with England in the years BC – Before Clive), Back wrote: "When Dean Richards got dropped [by Leicester], he had simply got older: it happens to us all."

As for sitting on the bench in favour of a younger man, Back added: "It would be very hard to remain motivated. I know I won't be able to do it." Well, he had to last week against New Zealand, and though restored from the start here against the Wallabies, Back had to give best, not for the first time, to the fine Australian openside, George Smith. Ordinary name; extraordinary player. Smith is 22 years old, Moody is 24, Back will be 34 in January. At Gloucester, another devastatingly quick openside called James Forrester is waiting in the wings, or indeed on the flanks. The breathless pace of the modern game also makes it a young man's game. Where Smith comes from, exponents of the teak-tough Aussie Rules are said to be over the hill at 25.

Back's best hope as his New Year birthday approaches is that the one item that is never marked down in sales is experience. Witness his notorious match-winning sleight-of-hand at a scrum for Leicester in last May's Heineken Cup final. Watch a videotape of that match against Munster carefully and you will see Moody try the same thing at the previous scrum.

Back was the one to pull it off. Yesterday he was generally in the right place; the only trouble is that, as when Jonny Wilkinson made an early break after collecting a kick from Steve Larkham, Moody seems to get there 10 metres quicker. Hill's positional sense has been a core strength since his first cap in 1997. He is now developing as a line-out threat, too.

In a squad of 30 for the World Cup, England may not need to make a clean break with any of the country's three most-capped breakaway forwards. But a packed 12 months of Test matches between here and Sydney will surely be most testing of all for Back.