Beating an inexperienced Japan side is small consolation for head coach after a disappointing autumn of near misses

What is the best England could have expected from their final Test of the year? Probably something like this. But, really, this was the proverbial game they could not win.

It has been tempting, as it always is with England, to cry crisis at every opportunity, especially this autumn as that losing run stretched out like a man on a rack. But it is hardly stretching a point, either, to observe that only the slightest adjustment to what actually happened might have conjured a far healthier picture. That hit post at the end of the All Blacks game, that late drama against Australia – tweak those and this campaign might even have been considered a success.