England flatter to deceive

So England won. Shame.

If only that pass that lead to Sackey's second had gone to a Tongan hand, you have to wonder how different it would have been. A try then, to Tonga - not a certainty, but reasonably likely you'd have thought, and 17-14 at half time and you wonder just how different it would have been.

As the commentators said, there was a period in the second half where England lost shape, lost self-belief, and if they hadn't had that lead, and if Tonga hadn't had a couple of passes go to ground, they'd have still been in trouble. If they'd been behind when that hit, who knows?!

Whichever side won was going to struggle against the Aussies, lets be honest. Australia will be licking their lips after that display from England. They're vulnerable up the middle, they're moderately vulnerable at the line out (and Tonga aren't great there in all fairness), their scrum didn't really dominate at the times you'd expect it to - Gregan will not fall to the soft touches that Gomersall managed to inflict which did the most damage to the Tongan scrum, Mortlock and whoever (Giteau?) will hammer the 10, 12, 13 channel that looked so vulnerable, and if it's bulked up by Farrell, they'll run past him at speed.

However, Tonga should go home full of pride. A country with the population of a smallish town in England played well and made the English sweat and struggle. They struggled at times with precision, but they actually played far more attractive rugby for most of the time, and their commitment to the cause certainly can't be doubted. The mainstream media are harping on about a high tackle. It was high, but it wasn't sickening, as I've seen it referred to - you have to wonder if it was Lewis Moody's mum writing the piece. The damage that left him in a heap on the floor was because, to my eyes, Moody ducked his head into the tackler's shoulder at speed. The arms were wrapping, and one wrapped high. A penalty, certainly, but anything more, no way. You see far worse tackles than that in most games without cards, sometimes without penalties even. It was made to look worse because Moody tried hard to knock himself out for the second time in the game, not because it was a highly dangerous tackle, no more than most tackles that are just over the shoulders anyway. Dangerous by law, but not full of malice.

Let's hope, whatever the political fun and games with the IRB, that Tonga build on this and come back next time better yet. England, don't feel to comfortable. You avoided one embarrassment, the first defending champions to fail to get out of the pool stages. Chances of going past Australia - cat in hell's got better odds.