England posted their third straight win over Australia while Scotland defeated South Africa for the first time in 33 years on Saturday as the northern hemisphere made further inroads into the world rugby order.
England, victorious over the All Blacks last week, beat Australia 32-31 in a superb match at Twickenham, while the Scots outclassed the Springboks 21-6 at Murrayfield.
However, New Zealand managed to prevent a second successive hat-trick of defeats for the SANZAR nations as they somehow scraped a 20-20 draw with France after a bizarre finale in Paris.
French flyhalf Francois Gelez had an injury-time penalty attempt to win it but, after the ball fell off his kicking tee, he amazingly attempted to run the ball, only to be stopped by the referee who awarded a scrum to New Zealand, leaving his team mates and the crowd stunned.
Gelez then had a chance to make amends with the last kick of the game, a 37m penalty, but sent it narrowly wide.
Wales scrapped to a 32-21 victory over Canada at Cardiff, but Argentina were too strong for Italy as they chalked up a crushing 36-6 success in Rome.
Ireland was to play Fiji in Dublin yesterday.
England started strongly at Twickenham and led 16-6 after 39 minutes.
The world champions blasted back either side of the break, however, with two tries for Elton Flatley and one for winger Wendell Sailor to open a 12-point lead.
Winger Ben Cohen's second try and a faultless display from flyhalf Jonny Wilkinson, who scored 22 points, secured a nail-biting 17th-successive Twickenham win for the hosts.
"This is a big scalp to take, I think that was the best Australia team of the last three years," said England manager Clive Woodward.
Scrumhalf Matt Dawson added: "It's probably the first time I've seen or played in an England side who have come back from two scores down ... showing the ability to play some rugby, not just kick goals but score tries."
Australia coach Eddie Jones, whose team were beaten 18-9 by Ireland last week, said he did not think the current crop of results signified a shift in the game's powerbase.
"It is definitely an advantage to play at home," he said. "There is a fine margin in international rugby, there are six or seven teams that are very good."
England will now attempt to complete the southern hemisphere clean sweep next week against South Africa, who looked badly out of sorts at Murrayfield.
The Springboks made 10 changes from the team thrashed 30-10 by France last week but if anything looked worse as Scotland secured the victory with two second-half tries.
Flanker Budge Pountney was bundled over the line for the first and winger Nikki Walker was gifted the second when replacement center Andre Pretorius, being hounded behind his own tryline, miskicked a clearance straight to the winger.
Brendan Laney chipped in with 11 points while South Africa's points came from two Butch James penalties.
Coach Ian McGeechan described the victory as an historic day for Scottish rugby, their first success against the South Africans since a 6-3 Murrayfield win in 1969.
"It's a very special day because we don't beat South Africa very often" said McGeechan, who led the British and Irish Lions to a series victory over the then-world champions in 1997.
New Zealand spent the whole night living off scraps at the Stade de France as the hosts totally dominated up front and won almost every lineout.
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