Wales win comfortably. England escape humiliation

Wales performed well against Argentina. In fact, their scrum and line out looked better than England's had last week. Their backs weren't quite on song, but Hook is growing into his role as makeshift full-back, the Ryan Jones-Cooper-Stephen Jones axis is working well and Shane was back to his twinkle toed best. Tackling against an uninspired back line was always good, often ferocious and brilliant.

In a way that, all too often, only the All Blacks really manage when players were "out of position" such as Shane joining a ruck, they generally joined and contributed.

The game wasn't perfect - there were a lot of turn overs at breakdown and there were certainly too many handling mistakes at critical times but it was a step in the right direction AND an important win.

England, on the other hand, will take what I suspect is false hope from this result. There were three frantic tackles, one of which certainly stopped Muliaina scoring after about 20 minutes, the other two of which probably stopped tries too. And Carter, very unusually, left 13 points on the pitch, 2 missed penalties that he should have got and a try that he fluffed with bad hands. Guildford had an unlucky one too, when a ball that could have gone back into Muliaina's hands and given him an unopposed run in under the sticks went forward from his hands instead.

Let's not detract from England's defensive efforts, the All Blacks could easily have scored 20 more points with a bit more luck and being on song and if they'd taken those, who knows how many they would have taken?

And the positives that came out? England can sell themselves on defence if they think it's worth it. They apparently didn't last week or the week before - will in the Six Nations? Simon Shaw is a great player. No problem with saying that, he and Moody, plus Cueto at the back again, shone in this match. Of those three Shaw certainly, and possibly Cueto and Moody who have both had runs of injury and might again, are unlikely to make the next RWC. If Cueto misses out, Monye, Armitage and ... well who? make up the back three. Banahan looked willing, but actually usually ineffective on defence, and he looked terrible on attack. If Shaw misses out, who is the obvious lock replacement? Jordan neglected to play for a couple of weeks and has to improve a lot to step up again. If Moody misses out... England are in trouble - he was everywhere, spoiling and fighting for the ball (legally it should be said). Without him... England would be in a much worse place than they are today throughout this series.

Graham Henry must be quietly pleased. He's had the worst year as AB coach that he ever had, but it looks like the AB will finish the year on top of the world again. He's brought a team under fire together and whilst he might not have the doubling up of quality players at all positions he had for the last RWC yet, he's starting to show there's a lot of cover and young talent coming through.

And to end with the final heresy - Johnson must consider dropping Wilkinson. Kicking from hand today was conservative but better than last week. That's not saying it's good mind. Kicking from the tee was fine. But running the game, giving his backs a chance - no. He was deep, slow and laboured. England threatened the AB try line twice - once from a charged down pass and once after Geraghty came on and when he was playing in the 10 spot.