From the smoke came fireworks

How much did this game, this result and this performance matter? Beforehand, it very much depended on where you were coming from, Gundegai or north London.

The young man from the small New South Wales town - 'but rugby league's bigger out our way' - was at pains to make clear to his new friend from north London on the 12.13 from Waterloo that, no, an England win wouldn't be a 'get square' for what the Australian second-string cricketers were doing to Marcus Trescothick's woebegone lot in Hobart.

'We just want to see a good contest, mate.'

English fatalism shaped the response. 'Yes, well you never know with England.' I wonder what he thought afterwards, after the most rousing of wins, imperfect but never dull - victory fashioned out of an unwillingness to bend to these worthy world champions.

A flawed win over New Zealand's 'Virtual Bs' last weekend did little to arouse enthusiasm among the England faithful, who nevertheless come in their swarms, knowing they will invariably be entertained, if not always satisfied.

A hat-trick against South Africa next Saturday? Now that would be something to be proud of.

Eddie Jones on Thursday called this one-off fixture Australia's 'grand final to the season', but was firm in the view that it would not prove who were the better team. 'You need a series,' he said. 'After the World Cup, I'm sure they'll get back to that format.'

So this in some senses was being treated by management at least as a high-class exhibition, a good training run and a chance to impress. But the bragging rights were still up for grabs.

Proceedings started in the now comically naff way, a triumph of marketing - such as it is - over what people actually want. As the fireworks' smoke lifted over the pitch at about 2.30pm, a posh voice inadvertently pierced the minute's silence that had been called to mark the death last week of the former England player Ron Jacobs.

'Enough of the bloody fireworks!' he shouted, before shutting up to give Ron a proper rugby send-off.

It was a moment of tradition rubbing up against the crass commercialism that is swamping the game. Our friend was right, though, and many who'd paid good money to fill the place would have agreed. Rugby doesn't need selling. It needs playing. And celebrating.

Celebrating the daring of an England team prepared to spin the ball, not only at the start but at the end when husbanding a one-point lead. And standing in the aisles for Ben Cohen when he got on the end of an adventurous raid down the left to score the first try after nine minutes, then scored again in the second half.

Any thoughts that the fixture didn't matter to Australia were dispelled early on. They recognised that England were going to come at them and, mixing smart drift defence with a dash of desperation, they disrupted most of their efforts. Going forward, they asked difficult questions down both flanks.

There will be moments, and there have been many in the past, when passion rises from nowhere. That hardly discounts the commitment in lesser confrontations. But it's just not possible for players to turn off in the middle of an international at Twickenham, or anywhere else.

And how much did Jason Leonard want to win, in his ninety-eighth game for England? Every bit as his first for Barking, probably. It was his first international for a year and, at 34, he didn't look any less round than he did in Argentina 12 years ago.

And there he was in all his roly-ploy glory yesterday to pick up a bobbling pass after Cohen had broken down the left and threatened to breach the line again. Mind you, Leonard was last to the scrum when play broke down on the other side of the field.

The refereeing was exemplary throughout, dispelling any doubts Clive Woodward might have had beforehand. And Jonny Wilkinson twice had cause to thank Mr Honiss for his diligence with a pair of towering penalties from on and around the halfway line in the first half.

The second session was always going to be the real test. So, when Wendell Sailor went over in the first minute to hand Australia a two-point lead, England were left in no doubt about the legitimacy of the fixture. When Elton Flatley went in for his second after a runaway five minutes later, there was no doubt - this was getting serious.

At 16-28 down 10 minutes into the half, England were in a position not dissimilar to that of the All Blacks last week when they trailed 31-14. Things weren't looking promising. Could they find the resolve the New Zealanders managed?

Martin Johnson was wandering among his troops at the breakdowns, chivvying away like a sergeant major in the trenches. And Wilkinson's long-range penalty in the 13th minute of the half arrived like a letter from home. But so did Burke's two minutes later, going the other way from a similar range.

When Ron Jacobs was playing, in the 1950s, England were grinding out scores here such as 9-5 against France and 16-3 against Scotland. On the road they beat Wales 3-0 and Ireland 6-0. Maybe the smoke that slowed them then came from cigars instead of fireworks. Of which, in the end, there were plenty of the right sort here yesterday. Did it matter? It would not be a question to put to any of the England players, even over the phone. It mattered, all right. Just like Hobart did for our friend from Gundegai.