I don't know about you, but through all of those months that I anticipated the Ashes, I didn't expect to have them in my mouth.

It's ridiculous. We all know that cricket ebbs and flows, that's its beauty. But this match has gone more like the King Sound tide.

At its outward ebb, on Saturday night - an eon ago - Australia sat commandingly astride the match after Mike Hussey and Brad Haddin's marvellous partnership. Stupidly I tempted fate by reading the online sites of several English papers, revelling in their defeatist tone. I had Aahnold speaking in my ear, from Conan the Barbarian: "What is best in life? To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women."

Ah, hubris - the Gabba is thy name.

I wish I had had, at that moment, another little voice speaking in my ear, like the slave placed in the chariot of a victorious Roman general being given a triumph - the origin of the word - by being wheeled through the streets of Rome toward the Forum, in an embroidered purple toga, oak leaves around his head, with driven before him carts loaded with plunder, and slaves and captured chieftains plodding before him in chains. At such moments the practical Romans always had a slave whispering in the ear of the ‘triumphator' the mantra "sic transit gloria, sic transit gloria," which roughly translates as "all glory is fleeting."

My slave would have been whispering in my ear on Saturday night: "We are where we are because of three superb individual efforts. We're still not likely to take 20 wickets, and God help us if we end up batting to save the match."

To see the way the English have roared back into this match, taken our dominant position and smashed it, humiliated our popgun attack and heaped scorn on our entire cricketing set-up, is to see a flow back from an ebb that makes King Sound look like a trickle.

So much now looks laughable. Coach Nielsen's assertion that every moment since the loss of the Ashes in 2009 has been spent planning their recovery. Captain Ponting's vow that he saw pre-match the fire in the eyes of his team-mates to fulfil that mission. I won't add the reported comments of Mitchell Johnson that he intended to target Andrew Strauss and "knock his block off" because I don't believe he could have said that - knowing in his heart of hearts that he is a busted flush.

Whatever comes out of this match, the undeniable fact that England has not only driven a stake through the heart of the idea that there still exists any "aura" about the baggy green cap vis-à-vis themselves and their own efforts, they have thrown several cloves of garlic in for good measure. And as a result that "aura" has been interred for a very, very long time.

You can see traces of it - sad and pathetic that they are - when Watson or Johnson occasionally glares at the England batsmen with that "how did that ball not get you out?" look. Sadly, they learned that look from Warne when they played in teams with him. He could back it up. They cannot.

The game has not been a total loss for Australia. Siddle's effort on day one was magnificent, and then Hussey and Haddin batted with power and passion of a kind that deserved more from the way this Test will end. They should have been match-winning performances, all three of them. I have egg on my face because I did not believe that Hussey and Haddin deserved to be in the team. But I will admit that there is no way that, say, Usman Khawaja and Tim Paine could have performed that partnership.

Hussey in particular was a revelation, all positive intent and aggressive strokeplay. But before we get carried away, let's just remember that in his deserved hour of vindication, the critics against whom he vindicated himself were not making it up for the hell of it. Where had this purpose and confidence been for so long, through which he had been carried as a passenger in a vulnerable middle order? Hussey ought to remember that it wasn't what was being written and said about him that was the problem - it was the fact that what was being written and said about him was true! He could not contribute, for a long time, and the side damn well needed him to. Good for him that he has, it was one of the great Australian Test innings, but if he thinks it entitles him to again take the kind of sabbatical he's been on for a year or two, and then pull another Bigwig of a rabbit out of the hat like Brisbane, forget it. He was overdue a contribution of runs, and runs are his job.

As is now usual with the Australian team, we have had plenty of passengers in this game. It is now accepted that at least one of the bowlers will go AWOL and that our brittle top six will furnish a couple of non-contributions. Has anyone else noticed that the two batsmen to look most fragile at the crease so far this Test have been Australia's captain and vice-captain? Three, if you add Marcus North, which I hope the Australian selectors no longer do.

What was going on with Ponting and Clarke? Did you see the shots each played in being dismissed? How can batsmen with their records and averages look so unsettled and uncertain so often against England? It was only good Test Match bowling they were facing, nothing devastating: their lack of resilience is a major worry at this early stage.

On the bowling front, Johnson is just sad, his ego writing cheques that his body can no longer cash. It has been staggering to read Nielsen and Cooley talk about how when he gets it all right, when his action comes together and his wrist and arm position click into some sort of Nirvana, it is all wonderful. And yes, remembering him scaring the South Africans in 2009, I can see where they're coming from. But there has been an awful lot of dross under the bridge since then. Carting him around the world for months at a time seeking this momentary epiphany is something we can no longer afford. We need someone whose wrist and arm are capable of posing a wicket-taking threat every ball he bowls. A spot in our bowling attack should not be his by reputation, nor because of what he could do if he only had his head and his arm right. Judge him by what he is doing and send him back to Sheffield Shield to seek his biomechanical enlightenment.

Siddle's first-innings heroics aside, the lack of penetration in our attack in England's second innings has been truly devastating to witness. They have treated our bowling, rightly, with complete contempt. We seem to be able to capture swing and cut only sporadically and fleetingly. Most of the time in this second innings it has been gentle, undeviating run-fodder. We hone in on the pads unerringly and are milked for hours. Watson and Hilfenhaus should be told once and for all that short balls from them are a joke to any self-respecting Test batsman. If Watson must bowl, it has to be in short spells in which length and channels are paramount - and the "Warney glare" is discarded.

Strange to say, I think the fast bowling side of Australian cricket is actually pretty healthy. Doug the Rug should be a welcome addition to the attack in Adelaide, and the likes of Peter George, Mitchell Starc, Trent Copeland and Josh Hazlewood give me a fair bit of confidence in the future. But our first-choice crew - Watson, Hilfenhaus, Johnson and even the willing Siddle - have been shown up as innocuous trundlers in the second innings: without assistance from the pitch or the conditions, there is no threat whatsoever. The length and line has been diabolically poor. Doherty has bowled honestly but clearly needs more help from the pitch if is to make an impact.

I simply cannot believe how well the English top order has played in getting up off the floor and wresting the advantage back in this game. But that it had to be accompanied by a total dropping of the Australian bundle - indolent fielding and a general air of meandering acquiescence from the captain flowing down to his team - is enough to shatter the last of the illusions I might once have fondly held about the Australians' mental superiority in the cauldron of five-day cricket. That is over.

To think that we held a 221-run lead - sic transit Gloria. And Gloria, I know how you feel.