For proof that rugby is a game transformed over the past decade, the best people to talk to are props and wingers.
Once upon a time at Twickenham you were more likely to find a four-leaf clover than a prop with pace, and wingers were small, weedy fellows who shivered on the touchline. These days props run around like wannabe greyhounds and enormous wings such as Ben Cohen boast about their tackle counts.
The point is hammered home when you ask Cohen about today's monumental collision with South Africa at Subiaco Oval. "We'll be on our guard and looking forward to the very physical battle ahead," he says.
When even England's wings start talking about the physicality of the contest awaiting them, it really is time to reach for the hard hats. Most youngsters, asked to nominate the greatest wing of modern times, would plump for Jonah Lomu. That would seem fair enough, with Lomu managing 35 tries in 60 Tests. Cohen, at the age of barely 25, has played exactly half as many internationals and has already scored 25 tries for England.
It is a phenomenal strike rate, yet compared with his All Black counterpart Doug Howlett - 26 in 33 Tests - he barely gets a mention. At this rate Rory Underwood's English record of 49 in 85 Tests is already doomed and, judging by the second of Cohen's two tries against Georgia last weekend, there is further improvement to come.
They used to say Cohen could not turn and had only straight-line speed; here he was confounding his marker with a shuffle straight from the Jason Robinson book of magic. At 6ft 1in and nearly 16-and-a-half stone, England have unearthed their own pocket Lomu.
Since making the England team, his life has changed fundamentally, the death of his 58-year-old father Peter after a nightclub assault in Northampton having exposed him to emotions which put pivotal World Cup pool games into perspective. Last Monday was the third anniversary of the attack on his father.
Somewhere along the line Cohen has rubbed one or two people up the wrong way. He still reckons the cause was a split-second throwaway line, the "Shane who?" comment before a Wales Six Nations game which was seized on as an insult to his opposite number Shane Williams and also prompted death threats.
"I don't think I was arrogant when I was younger, I really don't," he insists now. "A lot of people say I was but I wasn't. It was just people's perception of me. Then, just because my dad died, they think I'm a really laid-back bloke, which in fact I always have been."
Whatever the reality, he takes more persuading to blow his own trumpet these days. "I just look at people like Richard Hill. You never hear anything from them but they go out there and do a world-class job week in, week out."
There is no escape from the past in Australia, however, where every second question tends to contain a reference to his uncle George, part of England's famous 1966 World Cup-winning team. Ben says his uncle has instructed him to "keep the Cohen name up" but, for the moment, talk of finals and medals is of secondary importance to the wider goal of ensuring England stay focused.
"People say 'Do you just want to go out and score tries?' and yes, I do. I think everyone does," says Cohen. "But I don't specifically go out to do that. I go out to get involved in the game, not to miss a tackle and not to let my team mates down. If I do, I wake up on Sunday morning feeling like absolute shit and I don't want to do that."
Cohen is not one for resting on his laurels. "You have to work on your game. It's like Jonny Wilkinson working on his kicking. Being out on the wing you've got to look for new ways of keeping people guessing."
Hence the quickstep, or was it the foxtrot, against Georgia? "Listen, all teams these days push the boundaries; they're all looking for new ways to go forward. The wingers get bigger and quicker and the game has got a lot wider." England's wide boys, in other words, are increasingly central to the plot.
