Saints star Sleightholme scores his first England tries

The Saints wing wasted little time in making his mark, scoring just five minutes after coming on for Immanuel Feyi-Waboso at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham.

And that 58th-minute score was followed by another soon after as Sleightholme helped to put England ahead.

However, Australia eventually fought back and scored a dramatic try to snatch a 42-37 victory in added time.

“Everyone associated with the team is gutted,” said England boss Steve Borthwick.

“It’s a game we should have won, we were in a position to win. Multiple times in the game we put ourselves in position to go and win the game and we didn’t.

“Ultimately when you turn over that much ball and have a game that unstructured against a team with that much pace, you are giving them opportunities and we gave them far too many opportunities.

“If you look at what you have seen in the last couple of weeks, we came within a width of a post of beating New Zealand and the team played very well and also accepting not being good enough because we wanted to win, we were in a position to win.

“And today you see again the team developing the attacking side of the ball, the team having the confidence to move the ball. You saw that today and you have seen that with the team.

“One of the big challenges of the England team over a long period of time has been the weight of the shirt on the players. It is something we have worked to develop and move on from with the team but clearly there is consequences.

"If you turn the ball over that many times, you don’t give your defence much of a chance. So we need to improve on that.

“You saw the players with the ball in hand play with an endeavour and courage.

"This is a team that has got points, there are guys that want to move the ball. The challenge is to understand the right balance with that. That if you give the opposition that many chances, they are going to take them – and they took plenty.”