..AND IT’S ON Old Enemy stand in way as Red Rose aim for world record 18 on the spin

England were on their knees 17 games ago, today they can take their place in history alongside the all-conquering All Blacks

FOR Mike Brown it began with a “terrible week – one of the worst of my life”.

The inquest into England’s 2015 World Cup humiliation was under way; the nation’s rugby team already a laughing stock.

As they took to the field to face Uruguay, players wearing the Red Rose wanted only to get the game over with and escape the spotlight.

The very last thought on anyone’s mind, that chastening day in Manchester, was that this was the start of something big. Really big.

That a meaningless 60-3 victory over a nation few knew even played rugby would be the first step in a run which today reaches world record proportions.

Victory over Scotland would equal New Zealand’s mark of 18 – an unbroken sequence dating back to that hollow first one which preceded the removal of coaching staff and captain. To the day England full-back Brown admitted to being “depressed, very down and still unable to sleep” a week after the shock elimination had been confirmed.

The following morning England packed their bags as the tournament went on without them. Stuart Lancaster was replaced as boss by Eddie Jones, Chris Robshaw as skipper by Dylan Hartley. They departed as the first host nation to fail to qualify from the pool stages of a World Cup.

But also with a determination this had to be, not just the end of their worst rugby nightmare, but also the start of something better.

George Ford said: “Experiences like this aren’t nice at the time but, hopefully, we’ll look back on it in four years’ time and think, ‘We learned a hell of a lot there’.” Brown added: “Individually we each need to strive to be the best player in the world in our own position, as the New Zealanders are.

“At the moment, if we’re honest, how many of our players would make a World XV or even a Lions XV? A couple perhaps, not many.”

Just 17 months on and many more than a couple of Englishmen are Lions-bound. A hell of a lot has been learned too.

“We couldn’t just sit around, we had to move on,” Wasps’ James Haskell said of the players’ response to their lowest low. “Imagine me going to my boss Dai Young and saying, ‘Sorry mate I can’t train today, I’ve got to go have a cry’.

“I’ve been written off more times than some of the government’s tax returns. I just keep plodding along.”

England, under Jones, have done rather more than plod along. But that guarantees nothing today. Scotland come to HQ as title contenders, not merely party poopers.

Jones’ men need to play far better than they have to date in this Six Nations to move alongside the All Blacks team of 2015-16 in the pantheon of rugby greats.

After a week of petty mind games, now comes the serious bit.