Fabulous Foley hammers nails into England's World Cup coffin

TWICKENHAM, London -- Arriving at Twickenham hours before the game, the sound of Jerusalem floated on the mid-afternoon haze. Come full-time, and while little pockets of Twickenham sang Waltzing Matilda with gusto, it was the din of empty plastic pint glasses hitting the concrete stands that rang loudest -- the nails being hammered into England's Rugby World Cup coffin.

England were outplayed in every area of the field until George Ford came on and changed the flow of the game, as did Australia's call to bring on Nick Phipps for Will Genia. Both shifted the tide into England's favour, but just as they showed hints of hauling back the 17-point deficit, Owen Farrell dipped his shoulder into Matt Giteau, got a yellow card for his troubles and England's dreams were shattered.

Prior to last weekend's match against Wales, there was a solitary man predicting the end of the world as you walked up Whitton Road to the stadium. Whether he quite envisaged the end of days coming quite like this for England, only he knows, but this vintage have the ignominy of being the first hosts ever to be knocked out in the pool stage.

They simply had no answer to Australia's double act of Michael Hooper and David Pocock. Tom Youngs and Joe Launchbury put in hugely valiant performances for England, but they could not get any edge in the breakdown with the 'Pooper' combination having a field day. There was a horribly familiar pattern of England getting the ball with broken field, flinging it into the middle of the park and either Pocock or Hooper committing brutal larceny.

Then there was the chief protagonist: Bernard Foley. For all the debate over who is England's first-choice fly-half, the Australian playmaker ran the show, scoring two tries and preventing another in the second half when he attempted an intercept with three England players waiting for an easy walk-in on the outside. The TMO judged it to have been a fair attempt rather than a deliberate knockdown. Had it gone England's way, they would have had the benefit of an extra man for 10 minutes and a probable penalty try. But this was the correct call from the TMO -- indeed, Dan Cole clattered Foley immediately after the attempted intercept, and had the tight-head not checked him, Foley would have been away for an uncontested try.

It would have been apt on a night where everything else Foley touched turned into points.

Such was the apocalyptic nature of this experience from an England point of view, the five scrum penalties conceded by their once superior front-row gave voice to the doomsayers. That strengthened area of the game, combined with their general strength, sees the Wallabies on par with the All Blacks as favourites for this competition.

For England, despite the impact of Ford, they simply did not boast enough cutting edge. The loss of Jonny May to injury at half-time robbed England of one of their chief strike runners. Sam Burgess' sole impact on the field was to catch Hooper high in the same passage of play that saw Farrell binned, and he should also have seen yellow.

While Australia advance, now comes the awkward questions for England. It was a nation that expected much when they came into this World Cup. You cannot fault the players' commitment -- Mike Brown must have little left in the tank after his three matches -- but guts and goodwill were not enough against the canniest of Wallabies teams.

Those howls of Waltzing Matilda at the full-time whistle will have cut right to the soul of English rugby. While they have to pick themselves off the canvas and ponder those horrible 'what-ifs', Michael Cheika's Australia and Warren Gatland's Wales march on. As does the World Cup, without its bedraggled hosts.

England's competition is over, but the World Cup is now getting interesting at the top. Australia are real contenders.