Some people will argue this was progress from an English point of view. Presumably they also believe the earth is as flat as an ironing board and that Elvis is still alive and well. Martin Johnson's face betrayed a very different reality on Saturday evening and the dark shadow of New Zealand now looms. Winning ugly is perfectly acceptable but when it involves such creative bankruptcy it offers little lasting comfort.
If the All Blacks analysts plan to sit through the entire DVD of this wind-blown carcass of a game, good luck to them. As a rule of thumb they should imagine the least dynamic attacking display an England team could possibly deliver on home soil and consider lowering the bar from there. For all the home forwards' set-piece organisation and resilient late defence, there was scant evidence the All Blacks are about to be ram-raided on the same ground this weekend.
In the end even Johnson had to acknowledge England won in spite of themselves. Lewis Moody was outstanding as a destructive human missile, James Haskell made a very decent fist of his switch to No8 and the home pack refused to crumble into a thousand pieces, helped by one or two contentious refereeing calls by the otherwise authoritative Nigel Owens and the bizarre decision to remove the dangerous Martín Scelzo at a critical stage. Otherwise it was such a wasteland of ambition that those who booed the teams off at half-time were perfectly justified. "We probably deserved it," sighed Johnson. "They had every right not to be happy."
Johnson insisted he did not throw any crockery in the dressing room, which suggests parenthood has mellowed him. Either that or he has realised he presides over a team so horribly short of confidence, self-expression and exuberance that a tongue-lashing would simply make things worse. If Johnson's England were a family pet, you would rush them down to the vet for a check-up. There are precious few shiny coats or wagging tails around. With the odd notable exception, they simply don't appear to be enjoying the predictable tactics they are being instructed to employ.
Neither, clearly, do their fans, which places further pressure on the management, regardless of this outcome. If winning were all that matters, why the long post-match faces? Until Matt Banahan's 70th-minute try, the hosts seemed unlikely to register either a victory or a try for the second weekend running. Even when a simple midfield bust by Haskell, a rare ball-carrying contribution from Steve Borthwick and safe hands from Moody finally gave Banahan the space to surge over for his third Test try in four Tests, there was concern in the coaching box as the big Bath winger ambled around to the posts with the ball in one hand. Had he dropped it, we can safely assume Johnson's Zen-master credentials would have been seriously tested.
Yet the fact remains that England are no closer to moulding a team of potential world-beaters than they were a year ago. The all-action Moody is scarcely a new discovery, the experiment of switching Ugo Monye to full-back has been a glaring failure and even Wilkinson is struggling to release England's constipated backline or kick for territory with any great effectiveness. Despite their new potassium permanganate strip, there remained only glimpses of chemistry between Wilkinson and Shane Geraghty and the gain-line once again remained mostly unthreatened.
Had Argentina possessed a more experienced fly-half, or their debutant centre Martín Rodríguez not emulated Wilkinson in missing three penalties, it might have been even worse. Johnson should have blooded Ben Foden at No15 against the Wallabies and must now weigh up whether to hand the Northampton utility back his first start against the All Blacks or retain Mark Cueto in the full-back role where he finished the game. If Simon Shaw is anywhere near fit, he has to return in the second-row where Courtney Lawes and Nick Kennedy must be the most frustrated of onlookers. If England simply want to negate New Zealand, there is also a case for Joe Worsley on the blindside flank, given that Tom Croft's talents are wasted in a team of such limited ambition.
Overwhelmingly, though, there is a sense of repression as opposed to freedom of expression. England only pulled through following collective recognition at the interval that another 40 minutes of utter dross was unthinkable. Without Wilkinson's angled drop-goal and a fine 50-metre penalty in a swirling wind, they would have struggled even more and they were lucky on at least two occasions when Owens harshly penalised Argentina as they rumbled towards the English line.
Wilkinson, despite leaving the field early following a blow to the chin, will be back in the chair opposite Dan Carter and, thankfully, is promising slightly more ambition next week. "I think we need to go out there and show our hand a bit more," he confessed. It is starting to feel like a perverse game of Cluedo. Who murdered the beautiful game on Saturday at the spiritual home of the nation's Colonel Mustards? Fifteen Professor Plums, all carrying identical lengths of blunt lead piping.
England Monye (Harlequins); Cueto (Sale Sharks), Hipkiss (Leicester), Geraghty (Northampton), Banahan (Bath); Wilkinson (Toulon; Goode, Brive, 75), Hodgson (London Irish; Care, Harlequins, 75); Payne (London Wasps; Doran-Jones, Gloucester, 63), Hartley (Northampton; Thompson, Brive, 69), Bell (Bath), Borthwick (Saracens, capt), Deacon (Leicester), Croft (Leicester; Worsley, London Wasps, 63), Moody (Leicester), Haskell (Stade Français).
Try Banahan. Con Wilkinson. Pens Wilkinson 2. Drop-goal Wilkinson.
Argentina Agulla (Brive); Borges (Albi), Tiesi (Harlequins), Rodríguez (Atletico de Rosario), Comuzzi (Pucara); Fernández (Hindu), Lalanne (London Irish; Figuerola, CASI, 75); Roncero (Stade Français), Ledesma (Clermont Auvergne), Scelzo (Clermont Auvergne; Ayerza, Leicester, 66), Lozada (Toulon; Carizza, Biarritz, 55), Albacete (Toulouse), Leonardi (San Isidro), Abadie (Rovigo; Campos, Montauban, 35), Fernández Lobbe (Toulon, capt).
Pens Rodríguez 3.
Referee N Owens (Wales). Attendance 78,743.
