Points win prizes

England's players celebrate that winning feeling

BBC Sport's Nigel Starmer-Smith responds to criticism of England's record win over South Africa.

Sadly, nobody seems to have told the rugby public that the objective in international matches is to win.

It is not, as some think, to score tries.

And the higher you go up the representative scale, from junior club team to full-blown international, the more the message is reinforced.

England have a winning style and why knock it?

The key ingredients are easy to identify: a supremely strong, well-disciplined and fit pack of forwards, an outstanding all-round defence, and a near-perfect goal-kicker.

Wilkinson accumulates more points

The principal weapon in the armoury is the left boot of Jonny Wilkinson, who in 30 matches has scored 458 points including 97 penalty goals.

In his last two outings he has kicked 42 points; all 21 against Australia, and a further 21 versus South Africa.

But those opportunities don't come by chance.

They are a consequence of the pressure that the whole team exerts on the opposition.

It may not be pretty, but it works.

Fourteen wins out of the last 15 internationals, a hat-trick over South Africa and consecutive wins over the reigning world champions do not require any further justification of the style of that achievement.

What should be understood is that when two of the best rugby nations clash, not only is it likely to produce a very physical encounter, but the strength of the defences will rarely be very different.

Talented midfield players are no longer able to carve or ghost their way through the opposition - missed tackles are a rare occurrence, and we are including fly-halves in that role as well these days.

Wilkinson made some of England's biggest "hits" against South Africa.

England have played to their strengths and found a winning formula that no-one else has matched

Nigel Starmer-Smith

Long gone are the days when Wales, or the triumphant Lions of the seventies, softened up their opponents for 60 minutes, with the occasional try along the way, before the backs ran riot in the last quarter.

Today the top teams are much stronger, much fitter, and benefit from much better organisation in defence.

Any flair in the modern game can easily be stifled or contained - it has little chance to blossom.

So, before you bemoan the lack of tries by England's almost all-conquering team, which amounts to less than one per game in the last four seasons of autumn internationals and the last World Cup - excluding mis-matches - salute a triumphant sequence of success.

They have quite literally played to their strengths and found a winning formula that no-one else has matched.

Greatly though I respect Ireland, I don't think that upset in Dublin would be repeated now.

Dan Luger runs in England's only try

It's natural to yearn for record wins over the great southern hemisphere nations with a hatful of tries in the final score tally.

But that, sad to say, is rarely going to happen in the modern professional game.

Blame the laws of the game if you wish to find a culprit.

The highly paid players in the top echelons of the sport are too strong, too fit and too skilled in certain aspects to ever allow it.

The worrying consequence of this is that I can only see the gap between the top half dozen nations and the rest widening to an enormous gulf.

The likes of Canada, the USA, Romania, Fiji and even, in time, Scotland and Italy, could all be cast adrift, and that bodes ill for the future of the worldwide game.

But don't blame Clive Woodward and his England team for that and for not emphasising the importance of tries.

It's only winning that counts - or so I keep being told.