At the heart of the defeats this weekend has been the capability of the Northern Hemisphere teams to learn lessons from their hidings at the hands of Southern Hemisphere tormenters. There is no flattery like imitation like and you should try and take some comfort from that.

To set the scene, the Guardian a few weeks ago had an (as usual) excellent article from Sean Edwards (Wasps Coach) on why the Southies were tearing the Northern lot a new a-hole. Permit me to quote him a moment:

"Well, as the south has focused on making the ruck a contest, in England we have been backing off. I am not blaming the referees: it's certainly not their fault. But in an attempt to make rugby faster and more entertaining here they have become more strict, to such an extent that when I'm coaching ahead of Premiership matches I tell players they can have one pop at getting their hands on the ball, then leave well alone.

Warren Gatland, my old boss at Wasps, says that at Waikato he tells players they can have one, two, three pops at the ball and then think about getting their hands out of the way"

It was in the habit of competing at the breakdown that he identified the superiority of you Southern lot. The only bit where he was wrong was when saying "If we want to be competitive in Twenty11 we had better put our heads together as soon as this World Cup is done and dusted. Change will probably slow the game down initially..."

Where he was wrong was underestimating the professionalism of the England coaching staff and seniro players who adapted mid tournment and through it dominated the Australians at the breakdown through a willingness and ability to contest for ball where they woudl previously from habit have backed off.

All credit to them.