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Any England cricket fan would have experienced mixed emotions at Tuesday's .

There would have been pleasure at watching Marcus Trescothick win the £20,000 prize for his autobiography , and just as much in seeing the former England opener with a big smile back on his Taunton chops.

After years battling the depression that ended his international career, Trescothick at last looked at peace as the champagne and canapés were raised in his direction (for the record, Banger left the cocktail sausages pretty much alone).

Yet, even as the applause rang round the room, the thought was inescapable: how the current England team could do with him back.

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There's nothing an Australian likes more than making an Englishman eat humble pie, and in west London on Saturday there were some pretty big slices being handed out.

All the talk in the build-up was about what Andrew Sheridan might do to his opposite number Al Baxter, about the nightmares the Wallabies pack must be having after the last October and .

Around the burger bars and picnic-hampers at lunchtime, the dank November air was thick with giddy chat of England's expansive, new-look back line.

What Australia had cooking, however, caught everyone by surprise. This was a deserved victory, the ingredients the exact ones England had been planning to throw into the mix.

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There aren't many English sportsmen who can make grown Australian men cry, but Andrew Sheridan is one of them.

It makes it all the stranger that, when he's not playing rugby, this scrum-smashing, 19-stone giant comes across as bashful as Bambi.

Sheridan's deeds against and in last autumn's World Cup quarter-final were so terrifyingly destructive, so utterly brutal, that you expect him to be a raw-meat eating monster off the pitch as well.

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What a difference a year makes.

12 months ago, in the pre-Gatland, pre-Grand Slam world, Wales would have been roared off the Millennium Stadium pitch had they chased down world champions South Africa to within five points.

Not any more. and Shaun Edwards have transformed this team, but with great deeds come great expectations. When you've tasted vintage , just doesn't cut it any more.

"I'm furious," said Gatland afterwards, flatter than a pancake that's been sat on by Schalk Burger. "Big teams nail big moments, but we didn't."

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Shaun Edwards is a man of contradictions.

This is a man who played through a admits that "everything hurts in the morning" and has a knee so destroyed by rugby that it'll have to be replaced with an artificial one.

He's also a chap who likes going to the ballet, speaks to his mum four times a day and enjoyed a trip with her to last time she was in town.

When you're a rugby league legend working in union, an Englishman coaching Wales and a Wigan boy living in a posh part of west London, you tend to enjoy upsetting people's preconceptions.

"You've got to push yourself," he tells me cheerfully. "If you don't, you just end up sitting around all day not doing much. It's too easy to slip into a comfort zone."

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