As the Australian press reach fever pitch in their attempts to use the 'boring' and 'arrogant' tags to demoralise Clive Woodward's side, rugby writer Tim Wellock agues that no England fan worth his salt will care how the World Cup Final is won - so long as England win it!

ON the surface, Jack Charlton and Roger Uttley were similar characters in their sporting prime. Big, tough-as-teak characters with none of the pretty boy looks of the modern icons, David Beckham and Jonny Wilkinson.

The Gosforth team captained by the big No 8 to John Player Cup triumphs in 1976 and 1977 were known as the Good, the Bad and the Uttley. They were forged in his image.

It wasn't pretty, but they knew how to win and didn't much care how they did it.

All of which makes it hard to believe that as England coach he sent out his team to play entertaining rugby in the 1991 World Cup final against Australia at Twickenham. It went against everything they had done before and it didn't work. They lost 12-6.

Such a thing would never have happened to a team managed by Jack Charlton and when he sent a message to the England rugby team before last week's semi-final it said simply: "Just win."

Charlton became a legend in Ireland because he gave them a winning football team. For all their love of life, wit and flair, the Irish were prepared to tolerate dull football as long as they were winning.

"Just win" is the message England will carry with them again into today's World Cup final. As the route to victory evolves, if it produces two or three spectacular tries all the better, but no-one in this country will give a hoot if all the points again come from the boots of Wilkinson.

Jonny is still only 24, but already he has over 800 points for England, more than twice as many as the previous record holder, his mentor at Newcastle, Rob Andrew.

He has huge experience for one so young, which is why he could handle the tension of the semi-final and 21-year-old Frederic Michalak could not.

The dedication which drives Wilkinson to spend part of Christmas day practising his kicking allowed him to kick two drop goals last Sunday with his weaker right foot. How many English footballers can kick with both feet?

Jonny's boots apart, experience is the key for England. Martin Johnson, Lawrence Dallaglio, Neil Back, Richard Hill, Matt Dawson and probably Will Greenwood know that they won't have this chance again. They must seize the day and they know how to do it because winning has become a habit.

Clive Woodward was a twinkle-toed, side-stepping centre and as a coach he produced an England team capable of spectacular rugby. But they kept losing Grand Slam deciders.

They have moved on from there. There may be fewer tries, but they have lost only one of their last 22 games and that was when they sent what was largely a second team to play France in Marseilles.

It's a far cry from Wilkinson's debut on the Tour of Hell in the summer of 1998, when England sent an under-strength squad to Australia and lost 76-0 in Brisbane.

He came through that unscathed and very much the wiser, and scarcely missed a kick in the following season's Five Nations Championship. But when the World Cup came round in October, Woodward preferred the more experienced Paul Grayson at fly half for the quarter-final against South Africa.

There were no cries of "boring" when Jannie de Beer kicked five drop goals to boot England out of the competition, but that's what England have had to contend with this week in Australia.

Throughout the competition they have been branded as arrogant and the Australian press has quoted people of various nationalities saying they don't care who wins the World Cup as long as it's not England.

Woodward dismisses it as banter, which it probably is, but it has stoked up the passions surrounding the final so that the thought of defeat is intolerable to both sides.

It always is to Australians but today's opponents will match their will to win. Experience and tactical awareness will tip the balance, and once the Aussies have tackled themselves to a standstill England might even finish them off with a flourish.

But all they have to do is win, just win.