England can at least return home next week with some measure of consolation from a tour of wafer-thin pickings. The real litmus test for the midweek side will be the last hurrah against the New Zealand Maori in Napier but defeat in Gosford would have further dented collective morale ahead of Saturday's second Test. This England squad have learned to be grateful for small mercies.
The manner in which his players battled back from 9-6 down in the last half-hour thanks to three penalties from Olly Barkley, all awarded for scrum offences, will also be a relief to Martin Johnson. The Wallaby head coach Robbie Deans was spot-on when he called it "a pretty ugly contest" on a dew-laden surface but his English counterpart has never bothered unduly about a lack of free-flowing rugby.
"We found ourselves three points down and we won by six," he said. "Ultimately I thought it was a good performance. We found a way to win."
Johnson also saw enough to persuade him some fringe candidates are making genuine cases for World Cup squad inclusion. Dominic Waldouck and Dave Attwood both did their causes no harm, although an ankle problem forced the Wasps centre Waldouck off the field after just 28 minutes.
"I think we'll find some players out of this tour, even if it's not right now," Johnson said. "I came here with the British Lions in 2001 and we lost to Australia A. On this tour we've got a draw and a win from two tough games against them. Playing these midweek games is great. If we'd just had two Tests we'd have had eight or nine guys sitting around getting frustrated."
A similar tryless win on Saturday would suit the England management just fine, even if it again comes courtesy of the scrummaging problems that remain Australian rugby's achilles heel. For the all-important last quarter the home side were forced to field two hookers in their front row, with Tatafu Polota-Nau pressed into service as a reluctant tighthead.
The experience did not go well, the referee Steve Walsh taking a dim view of his repeated failure to keep the scrum up. Barkley, not pausing to ask if the Australians might have been better off opting for uncontested scrums, duly took advantage.
Joe Worsley, captain for the night, was also a reliable defensive presence but his post-match assessment was as accurate as anyone's. "We're pleased we won but let's not get carried away. If we'd carried on as we played in the first half-hour it would have been a great performance but we didn't." Quite so. This was England's first win in the southern hemisphere for seven years but will not linger long in the memory.
Maybe things would have been different had the touring team made more of their early pressure and territory on a cool evening on the central coast, some 75 kilometres north of Sydney. Johnson had ordered the Test squad to remain in their five-star hotel overlooking the harbour – "We've still got to put in some work and there are a lot of sore, tired bodies around" – and they missed nothing.
The Barbarians, not quite as strong as last week when England were fortunate to hold them to a 28-28 draw in Perth, had to weather early pressure but improved markedly when Berrick Barnes came on to replace the injured Will Chambers. Matt Banahan was later cited for a dangerous tackle on Barnes, with the hearing due to be held tonight.
Kurtley Beale made one slicing midfield break and came closer than anyone to crossing the try-line but both sides found the ball slippery and phase-play elusive. Two penalties apiece for Charlie Hodgson and Barnes made it 6-6 at half-time and a third successful kick from Barnes in the 53rd minute briefly threatened to condemn England to more strife.
Richard Wigglesworth and Delon Armitage both endured chastening games and the sight of the attack coach, Brian Smith, running on with messages every 30 seconds in the guise of a water carrier betrayed a certain nervousness among the management.
Had Barnes not opted to kick for the corner on a couple of occasions rather than going for goal it might even have precipitated another grim defeat and Deans, for one, senses this result will have scant bearing on events back in Sydney on Saturday: "We didn't see a lot tonight … they were willing but that was about all. The weekend's a totally different encounter."
Australian Barbarians Hynes (Reds); Cummins (Western Force), Chambers (Reds; Barnes, Waratahs, 13), Faingaa (Reds), Turner (Waratahs); Beale (Waratahs), Valentine (Brumbies); Cowan (Western Force; Polota-Nau, Waratahs, 73), Polota-Nau (Waratahs; Edmonds, Brumbies, 44), Weeks (Reds; Slipper, Reds, 51), Chapman (Brumbies), Simmons (Reds; Chisholm, Brumbies, 45), McCalman (Western Force), McCutcheon (Waratahs; Hodgson (Western Force, 51), Hoiles (Brumbies, capt).
Pens B Barnes 3.
England D Armitage (London Irish); Strettle (Harlequins), Waldouck (London Wasps; Tait, Sale Sharks, 28), Barkley (Bath), Banahan (Bath); C Hodgson (Sale Sharks; Geraghty, Northampton, 64), Wigglesworth (Sale Sharks; P Hodgson, London Irish, 55); Golding (Newcastle; Flatman, Bath, 55), Mears (Bath; Webber, London Wasps, 63), Doran-Jones (Gloucester), Attwood (Gloucester), Ward-Smith (London Wasps), Worsley (London Wasps, capt), S Armitage (London Irish), Haskell (Stade Français; Dowson, Northampton, 51).
Pens C Hodgson 2, Barkley 3.
Referee S Walsh (New Zealand). Attendance 9,053.
