Graphic: On top of the world

There’s certainly a lot to be proud of: resolve, stubbornness, not giving in to anything. Saturday was a real joy to be part of. One of the best days of my life.

What I have particularly relished is the way everyone has attacked the whole campaign since the South Africa match. The pressure the team was under then was huge and the honesty, the feeling and the desire that drove us forward from that point on has been phenomenal.

Look at England when we were just 26-22 up on Samoa, or 10-3 down to Tonga: those are the moments when you know the calibre of the people who are lining up next to you. You have to buy into the belief more. Do you want to push the extra yard? Do you want to go to that place? Every time we did.

Think of us on Saturday, just after the half-hour mark, when Lote Tuqiri scored his try. England had been ahead and suddenly we were behind. There’s a point, deep in your consciousness, where you might think: we’ve done well, given our best and we’ll just keep going. But we could not have been more different.

Likewise, in the second half, when we were defending, scrambling around in the backs, making huge efforts to stop Australia getting that second try. That is what makes us proud to be together. We have had to come a long way very quickly and it is a great feeling.

I know how much trust I had in my teammates because in those final minutes, I hardly looked up at the clock on the scoreboard; often in those situations you are looking every 30 seconds, every break in play. I find it hard to stop myself.

I know I looked up in the 72nd minute, but the next time I checked it said 79. That’s really good for me. This was partly because those last few minutes were so unrelenting, but also because of this trust thing, the idea that if we all did our jobs, then that would be enough. I believed in our team then and it was a belief well-placed; the guys stood up to that challenge amazingly well.

That immense effort from the pack is what rugby teams are all about. For Simon Shaw, in particular, this is great. Simon has never once stopped being a consistently world-class player, whether he has been in the side or out. I remember him being outstanding when he came into the team when Martin Johnson was injured and he was just as outstanding on Saturday. He can mix it with guys at any age and in any place.

But for all that, there was one moment over which we had no control: Stirling Mortlock’s penalty attempt in the 78th minute. I saw that kick again on a replay that night and I can tell you: it was a damned fine kick. With the balls flying the way they are he has real sympathy from me there, that is for certain.

As a kicker here you are not completely accountable. Sometimes it is like you are almost hitting and hoping, and kickers just never do that.

This is a difficult subject and I don’t want to make a big deal out of it. But in kicking you naturally want to control as much as you can; you can’t ever control the wind and you can’t control the pitch conditions. It seems that, at this tournament, the ball is another one of those.

When you can’t control something like that, it’s very difficult. And I know it is the same for everyone and I am also aware that some kickers, Chris Paterson notably, have been extremely successful.

But for me, I feel I’ve got a few kicks right in this tournament and still been punished by seeing them go wide. On Saturday I missed three from seven; one of those I knew immediately I’d executed wrong, but I was happy with the other two.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not mentioning this as a hard-luck story. The wind on Saturday was very tough, the flags on the top of the stadium told a different story to those at pitchside and the wind changed a couple of times when we were down there too. That makes kicking here really tough mentally. If the ball moves in mid-flight, you have to work out if it is the wind, the ball or yourself.

Don’t worry. I’ll be back down to the training ground tomorrow trying to figure all that out. The good news is I’ve now got another week to perfect it.