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Exciting times ahead for England - Woodward

Tom Croft has been among the young England players to have impressed this autumn © Getty Images

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Sir Clive Woodward has predicted an exciting 2011 for England after an encouraging autumn campaign.

England beat Australia in record fashion 35-18 and they downed Samoa but those victories were bookended by losses to New Zealand and South Africa.

The physical Springboks taught England a lesson at Twickenham on Saturday, overpowering Martin Johnson's men to win 21-11. But Johnson has established a young core to his team and Woodward, the 2003 World Cup-winning coach, believes England have turned the corner.

"I think 2011 could be a very exciting year for English rugby," said Woodward. "He [Johnson] is getting it right. The RFU have done a good job backing him. He has been through a pretty tough time when he has not had lots of high-quality players around.

"Now he has some young players coming through on merit and he has something to really build on. For the first time since Martin has been there he has five or six players we can all definitely name.

"For the first time you can say the England team is moving forward and you build it around players you can ink in. The positives far outweigh the negatives over the four games. It is all looking good."

Johnson was downbeat after the defeat by South Africa, when England failed to cope with the Springbok pressure and committed too many mistakes. But many of the young players Woodward referred to - the likes of Courtney Lawes, Dan Cole, Ben Youngs, Ben Foden and Chris Ashton - had never faced a team like it.

With the World Cup 10 months away, Johnson believes England are closing the gap on the Tri-Nations giants who occupy the top three places in the rankings.

"There is a huge amount of potential in this team and they will only get better," Johnson told BBC Radio 5 Live. "Individually every player has come out of this series better.

"We wanted to build a team, to have guys who could nail down a shirt and have the ability and character to stay there and the toughness to be the best player in the country week in and week out. Lots of these guys have started every game now. They are the England players in that position. You want that continuity.

"The All Blacks are ahead as number one in the world. South Africa are up there with the Aussies. A few other teams are chasing them down and I think the field is coming together a little bit."

The stand-out performance of the autumn was against Australia, which Woodward felt was put into its proper context yesterday when the Wallabies thumped Grand Slam champions France 59-16.

"[Australia coach] Robbie Deans is one of the outstanding coaches in world rugby. They are an outstanding team," said Woodward. "That game showed England play in a way that I have not seen England play in a long, long time. Everything they tried went well."

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