Captain Harry Wilson has admitted Australia’s latest crushing 45-22 defeat at Twickenham by a rampant England side was simply not good enough. By Ian Chadband in Twickenham

The toothless Wallabies have been handed another brutal World Cup reality check in a record-breaking defeat by rampant England, with captain Harry Wilson left lamenting: “It’s not good enough.”

Australia’s 45-22 Nations Championship mauling at Twickenham on Sunday (Monday AEDT) was their third successive 20-plus points defeat after the Bledisloe Cup maulings by New Zealand and again exposed what’s now looking alarmingly like a yawning gap to the very best sides in the game.

England, energised to show the unity in their camp after reports of player discontent with coach Steve Borthwick’s management style, provided the backlash they’d promised by running in seven tries to three as the Wallabies conceded their biggest ever haul of points at the sport’s London HQ.

It could have been even worse than a 23-point loss – following the 22 and 31-point drubbings by the All Blacks – as England also had an early Immanuel Feyi-Waboso try disallowed for a marginal forward pass and Australia only had Max Jorgensen’s interception try to show for their feeble first-half efforts.

“It was really disappointing. We didn’t really fire a shot,” sighed Wilson.

“I am really disappointed because I expected better from us.”

His team looked a shadow of the outfit that had begun coach Les Kiss’s reign so encouragingly. Sluggish and beaten in every area in the first half, they seemed powerless to extricate themselves from their own half as England’s intensity suffocated their efforts.

“Three convincing losses on the trot is not good enough,” sighed Wilson.

“And we’ve got to bounce back. We’ve got seven days to be a lot better (against Scotland) because we haven’t been playing up to the standards we have, and we know when we do play well, we can beat anyone in the world.”

Not on this sorry evidence, though. Wilson had promised his men would make it an “epic battle”.

Instead, it was only remotely competitive once England had already sealed the deal with their sixth try. Two consolation tries for Australia from Filipo Daugunu and Jeremy Williams in the final quarter couldn’t hide the quality gulf.

England made it 12 wins in their last 14 clashes with their gold enemies, with their own golden boy Henry Pollock showing in his second half replacement’s role he can be as deadly on the wing as he is as a flanker.

He scored twice in three minutes after replacing the equally brilliant strike-runner Feyi-Waboso, as Twickenham also cheered tries from Jamie George, Ollie Chessum, Joe Heyes, Jack van Poortvliet and Ben Spencer.

Australia’s defence has now conceded 45, 43 and 50 points in their last three matches.

“It’s certainly something that we don’t accept. There’s work to be done there,” said Kiss. “Our defence is just not coming together for us for sure, but we’ll continue to work.

“The bottom line is we have to be better. We just have to be better.”

Again, as in last year’s similar 25-7 loss at Twickenham, the Aussies couldn’t cope with England’s rolling maul, as both props went over for unstoppable scores.

The Wallabies were so often slow and stodgy with the ball in the face of excellent English defence that, apart from a couple of excellent front-foot aerial takes from Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii at the scene of his memorable Wallabies debut two years ago, they couldn’t get any attacking momentum in the first hour.

Angus Bell didn’t help when he got sin-binned for a hip-drop tackle on Feyi-Waboso — all the Nations Championship teams had been warned officials would get tough on this — just before halftime whch ended the livewire winger’s terrific contribution. Within a minute, England scored through Heyes.

Australia, outclassed and out of ideas, did grab an undeserved lifeline just before the break when Jorgensen, the match-winner at Twickenham two years ago, intercepted a loose van Poortvliet pass to make the scoreline a completely flattering 10-19 at the break.

But renewed optimism was sucked out of them within moments of the restart when Pollock went straight on the rampage, setting up the try of the afternoon for van Poortvliet.

Mistake-riddled Australia were marginally better after introducing Rob Valetini and Taniela Tupou, but the game was soon gone once Pollock, scooted over for his double.

“We had a harsh chat about where we wanted to improve in the second half, and ultimately we didn’t go there and fix that,” sighed Wilson.