The 1998 Five Nations tournament opened with defeat to France in
Paris but an overwhelming 60-26 victory over Wales at Twickenham
steadied the ship. The Murrayfield hurdle was safely negotiated,
and Ireland were convincingly beaten at Twickenham leaving England
as runners-up to a rampant France on their way to a second
successive Grand Slam. Sixteen tries had been scored in the four
matches and, against Ireland, a young Jonny Wilkinson had won his
first cap as a replacement on the wing in the final five
minutes.
At the conclusion of the season, an England party was chosen to
tour the southern hemisphere. There were seven matches scheduled
including tests against Australia, South Africa and two against the
All Blacks. If a full-strength tour party could have been chosen,
it would still have been a formidable assignment. The
unavailability of numerous first-choice players, such as captain
Lawrence Dallaglio, Jeremy Guscott, Jason Leonard and Martin
Johnson, meant that Woodward picked no less than 17 uncapped
players in an inexperienced tour party of 37 players. The captain
was scrum half Matt Dawson supported by fellow British and Irish
Lions Tim Stimpson, Nick Beal, Austin Healey, Graham Rowntree and
Ben Clarke.
The opening test match was to be played in Australia and the
Australian Rugby Union was critical when the English tour party was
announced. Chairman Dick McGruther suspected that the English
clubs were applying pressure on their players not to undertake such
an arduous tour:
"It's the greatest English sell-out since Anzac Day. I
think the Rugby Football Union has treated the southern hemisphere
with a degree of contempt. It would be hard to prove, but it seems
that with this touring party being decimated, that the employers
are applying some pressure to these players."
Problems dogged the touring party from the outset. For the test
at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, England picked four new caps and
had to add a fifth, the uncapped Gloucester scrum half Scott
Benton, when Dawson was ruled out by a training injury. Jonny
Wilkinson was making his first start at fly half and two more new
caps entered the field as substitutes during the match. The
Wallabies included the entire back line and thirteen of the team
that would go on to win the World Cup in Cardiff eighteen months
later. Unsurprisingly England was totally unable to match the
Wallabies, who led 33-0 at half-time and went on to win by their
biggest ever winning margin 76-0. The Australian backs scored ten
of the 11 tries, including three each for winger Ben Tune and fly
half Steve Larkham. It remains the largest English defeat in their
150-year history and four of the new caps never played in a test
match for England again.
