Barkley the fall guy while Worsley is forgiven

The more things change, the more they stay the same. England and Australia, rugby rivals for very nearly a century, put their respective brave new worlds behind them and reverted to type yesterday, the former by beefing up their pack and falling back on a kicking game in this weekend's second and final Cook Cup Test, the latter by slipping effortlessly into wind-up mode.

After careful examination of the video footage from last Sunday's 34-3 defeat in Sydney, Andy Robinson and his colleagues on the England coaching panel made seven changes to their starting line-up. The Leicester forwards George Chuter and Ben Kay, the Sale lock Chris Jones and the Wasps flanker Joe Worsley - aka Mr Angry - were promoted ahead of Lee Mears, Alex Brown, Louis Deacon and Magnus Lund.

In the backs, Andy Goode will replace Olly Barkley at outside-half, while Jamie Noon returns in the centre for Mathew Tait, who will play on the left wing instead of Tom Voyce. Unbelievably, Barkley is out of the starting combination altogether.

"We need more control and penetration at No 10," Robinson said. "Olly went quiet on us in the second half in Sydney, and we lost our way a little. I believe Andy brings something to the mix with his range of kicking skills and his ability to attack the line."

It was a perfectly logical explanation, but as England view Barkley primarily as the answer to their long-term problems at inside centre, why not play him there?

Demoted to the bench for the opening match, Worsley vented his spleen on arrival here, making no secret of his bitter frustration at a selection that gave Lund a first cap at his expense - and out of position to boot.

"We haven't picked Joe because he had a fume," Robinson said with an inscrutable smile on his face. "We've picked him because of his performance off the bench in Sydney. The pitch is where he needs to do his talking."

Talking of talking, the hosts had plenty to say for themselves yesterday - and not just on the subject of their captain George Gregan, who must make do with a seat on the bench this weekend, having equalled the English prop Jason Leonard's record of 119 international caps in Sydney. The defence tactician John Muggleton accused England of indulging in dirty tricks last weekend, specifically of setting about the ACT Brumbies flanker George Smith.

"George is a key figure in our defensive structure," Muggleton said. "We had difficulties because he was held back at every scrum and tripped at every line-out. Everyone knows that when he gets to the breakdown, he's hard to beat. England's tactics were to stop him getting there, to keep him out of the play."

Muggleton was gloriously dismissive of England's attacking game. "It was a simple one-out approach," he said. "That caused a problem. For them, not us. If they're not going to have more than one bloke available to take a pass, we're not going to mind."

With a few well-chosen words, the Wallabies managed to get England thinking about their tactics with ball in hand, and get Steve Walsh, the New Zealand referee awarded this weekend's fixture, thinking about Smith and his general wellbeing. All in all, this little outbreak of Australian mischief-making could hardly have been better timed.