History of The England National Rugby Union Team - 2000-2003

2000-2003

England commenced the new decade by winning the inaugural Six Nations title, but missing a Grand Slam due to defeat in their last match of the tournament to Scotland. An outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Britain disrupted the 2001 Six nations championship, and Ireland's matches against Wales, Scotland and England were postponed until later that year. Ireland then defeated England 20-14 at Lansdowne Road to deny them a Grand Slam. Although the 2002 Six Nations title was won by France, England did win the Triple Crown.

In June 2002 England, captained by Phil Vickery and with five new caps, defeated a full-strength Argentina team in Buenos Aires. Then in November that year under captain Martin Johnson, England defeated the three Southern Hemisphere giants at Twickenham. England first defeated the All Blacks, whose team included seven débutantes, by three points. Australia were beaten 32-31 the following week. The match against South Africa, unlike England's previous two matches, was easily won 53-3; their biggest ever win over the Springboks.

In 2003, England continued to progress and not only won the Grand Slam for the first time since 1995 but also maintained 2 years dominance by being the No.1 team in the world. After beating the previous tournament winner and Grand Slam champion, France in their opening match and going on to defeat the Welsh at Millennium Stadium, the remaining matches saw England put 40 or more points on every opponent. This was followed by wins over Australia and New Zealand in a pre world cup tour in June.

Going into the Rugby World Cup of 2003 they were one of the favourites for the title and after some minor stumbles along the way they reached the final on 22 November 2003 where they met Australia. England were crowned champions of the world following a drop goal in the final half-minute of extra time by Jonny Wilkinson. The final scoreline was 20-17 in a game that is considered one of the greatest rugby games ever seen. Three days later the English team arrived at the Heathrow airport in the early hours of the morning to be greeted by thousands of fans. On 8 December a national day of celebration like none that had ever been seen before took place. The English team greeted an estimated 750,000 supporters in their parade through London before going on to be greeted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace.

England again won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Team Award with Jonny Wilkinson finishing ahead of Martin Johnson for the individual awards.

Since the start of the decade, England had dominated world rugby winning 29 and losing only 5 matches against the other seven major rugby playing nations. This included a perfect record of 16 wins and no losses at Twickenham. In addition, England had won 12 successive matches against the three Tri Nations teams including victories in New Zealand, South Africa and Australia (twice). England's old nemesis, Wales, had truly been put to the sword with six successive wins for the red rose.

Table of all England games from 2000-2003.