England's hard-fought 13-9 win over Argentina in their first Pool B match at Otago Stadium on Saturday provided a rigorous assessment of areas that need improvement if they are to go on to claim a second Rugby World Cup title.
Argentina dominated England at the breakdown and went 9-3 up before tiring in the final stages, as the 2003 winners finally found some fluency and forced a crucial late try by Ben Youngs.
The 67th-minute score from the replacement scrum half was one of the few times England were able to explode out of the ruck with any penetration.
And with Jonny Wilkinson missing five of his seven penalty attempts, the English would have been made to pay had Pumas kicker Martin Rodriguez not been equally wasteful.
The fact that England conceded 11 penalties will be an area of concern for manager Martin Johnson, who said he would be "looking at the details" of some of the decisions.
"We gave some penalties away, some were clumsy but others were a bit harsh," he said in a post-match press conference.
Heartening effort
"You concede possession and suddenly you've got them in your own 22, grinding you down and trying to get over the line."
Argentina were stopped just short of the line on several occasions and they will take heart from their performance having played only one match in the previous 11 months.
That lack of game time was telling in the last quarter of an hour, but they were also hampered by injuries to fly half and captain Felipe Contepomi and centre Gonzalo Tiesi, both of whom will have scans.
"In terms of the result, it can cost us dear. But in terms of performance, I think the whole team made a big step forward," said Contepomi, wearing an ice pack on his torso.
He said the medical team were unsure if there was damage to cartilage or bone in his ribcage, while Tiesi has a suspected sprained medial ligament in his knee.
Backs to the wall
The standard of kicking was a surprise, particularly in the case of Wilkinson, but Johnson resisted the temptation to bring on Toby Flood.
Wilkinson recovered from five consecutive misses to convert Youngs' try and then open up a four-point margin with a late penalty.
"You concentrate on what you control and for me that's kicking the ball," Wilkinson said.
"Today it felt good, felt right but it wasn't going over. I'm a bit better with my back to the wall. You can't let these things faze you."
England captain Mike Tindall said he was pleased at how England had handled the pressure.
"Nothing seemed to be going right for us but no one panicked and everyone just stuck to their jobs," he said.
"Credit to Argentina for what they did, but once we got into the tempo of rugby we wanted we were able to get under the sticks."
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