So this is what they have been building behind Twickenham’s big black gates. After all these weeks in which England have seemed to always be a work in progress, Steve Borthwick finally wheeled out something that felt like a finished version of his team. No excuses, no apologies, no explanations, no talk about how young and inexperienced they are, no assurances that they are going to take the learnings. It was enthralling for their supporters and an ugly, bloody sight for the rest of the world. They were arrogant, imposing, and excellent. For everyone else, you guess, they are going to be hard to like and hell to play against.

It was a record victory, and a blue‑riband result against an Australian team who only recently beat the Springboks, and who are surely a lot better than England allowed them to be here. And if there were still plenty of little errors in the first 40 minutes – a couple of silly scrum penalties, a couple of shonky lineout throws to straighten up – it still added up to one of England’s better games since Borthwick took over as head coach; their best, for sure, since they beat New Zealand here this time last year. Heck, Borthwick even managed to crack a smile when it was all over.

You can find inspiration in the strangest places, and during the past week England’s seems to have turned up in the back pages of the Times and a recent article which reported anonymous sources complaining about the toxic atmosphere on their tour of Argentina last summer. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the reporting, England’s senior players seemed to be genuinely incandescent about it. Maro Itoje spoke about it again at length after the match. “The article didn’t represent the man I recognise, or the environment I recognise,” he said. “Steve is a world-class coach and we’re lucky to have him.”

The moment Itoje spoke out about the article earlier in the week, you could sense something was coming this weekend. England always tend to play better when they’re angry, Eddie Jones spurred them through an 18-game unbeaten run in 2016 by persuading them that everyone thought they were rubbish. It only seems to make the players more sure of themselves, and even if their outrage over what was ultimately a fair analysis of what’s gone wrong for them felt a little confected, the indignation it created served them well.

They dominated Australia from the opening moments, when Immanuel Feyi-Waboso went tearing through the midfield for a score that was struck off because of a forward pass from Ben Curry in the run-up.

The story goes that World Rugby has been handing out heart rate monitors to some of the fans during these autumn games, to give them a better sense of which bits of the game best get spectators going. For England the answer was simple enough. There must have been electrocardiogram spikes every time Feyi-Waboso got his hands on the ball in that first half. The man is a walking shot of adrenaline. He has made an average of 100 metres a game so far in this tournament and racked up plenty more in the 40 minutes he managed here before he went off injured after an illegal tackle by Angus Bell.

England haven’t had a player like him since Jason Robinson retired. It’s like trying to grab hold of a greased eel. England were smart enough to do the simple thing and give him as much of the ball as possible. He seems to be injured so often that it makes sense to use him as much as they can in the minutes he’s there. Really, his active involvement here was limited to 30 minutes as he spent the final 10 he played in the first half limping around the outfield. England will be desperate to have him back for the match against the All Blacks in a fortnight. Borthwick was still unsure how bad Feyi-Waboso’s injury is.

For the rest of this game they made do with Henry Pollock in his place. Twickenham did not seem to quite know how to greet him when he was announced as Feyi‑Waboso’s replacement just after half-time, but glory be if he didn’t go and snaffle two tries. One from his sharp reactions as he swept up a fumbled attempt at an intercept, the other with some speedy footwork as he raced into clear space along the right wing.

“He was excellent,” Borthwick said. “The downside is that now we’re going to have to hear all about it.” Pollock celebrated by standing still and stroking his chin, as if he was busy admiring himself in the bathroom mirror.

No one quite believed Jones when he used to insist that his winger Jack Nowell could double up as a flanker – now Borthwick has pulled off the opposite trick of using his flanker on the wing. It was one of those days when everything comes together that way. Borthwick’s biggest worry now must be finding something new for the players to get upset about.