Lawrence Dallaglio was England's most impressive player England player ratings More pictures from Wellington

Woodward sung the praises of his forwards, whose robust defensive play made up for some error-strewn attacking.

"It was heroic and gutsy, the team were brilliant," said Woodward on arguably the finest day in his five-and-a-half year reign.

"To play well against these guys, back-to-back wins over New Zealand, that's brilliant.

"In the second half we kept hold of the ball. Attack-wise we did some dumb things but the defence was fantastic. We got the win, a fantastic win."

Woodward was delighted by the resilience shown during a crucial second-half period when both Neil Back and Lawrence Dallaglio were sin-binned.

"To hold on with 13 was defensively outstanding," said Woodward.

And England actually added to their advantage towards the end of their short-handed spell thanks to the reliable boot of Jonny Wilkinson.

World Cup warning

The visiting fly-half's kicking in open play was unusually suspect, though his tackling was immense.

But his place kicks were exemplary and he nailed four of five penalties and a timely drop goal on 60 minutes.

All Black Doug Howlett scored the only try of the game two minutes later to cut the defecit to two points, but England hung on.

"When they scored their try perhaps people thought that we'd crack but we didn't. The last 20 minutes were just about lasting out," said skipper Martin Johnson.

"It was not our best performance but we won it and not many British teams have won here. The Lions have won only a few matches here.

HAVE YOUR SAY Apart from a couple of breaks New Zealand were effectively stifled for the whole game From Tom, London Join the debate

Asked about the signifance of England's win in relation to the forthcoming World Cup, Johnson added: "They know that they will get better than this but so will we."

The day got worse for New Zealand when second-row forward Ali Williams was cited by the Independent Citing Commission for a stamp on England full-back Josh Lewsey.

Williams cleared of stamping

However, he was later cleared by the judicial committee.