Rooney's woes reflect the despair of all England

Against the world's 30th-best nation England were an apology for legitimate World Cup contenders. The Guardian’s Paul Hayward was in Cape Town to see the action and felt Wayne Rooney’s reaction after the final whistle was evidence of England’s growing frustrations at their dismal World Cup form.

An anomaly Wayne Rooney was eager to correct was that he had picked up more red cards at World Cups than he had scored goals. Sendings-off led successful strikes 1-0 as the Premier League's best player arrived in South Africa hoping to justify the extravagant praised piled on him by some of the world's best judges.

There were other awkward stains on Rooney's résumé: for a start, no goal in an international tournament since the two he scored against Croatia in a 4-2 group phase win at Euro 2004, which prompted Sven-Goran Eriksson to lose control of his tongue. "I don't remember anyone making such an impact on a tournament since Pelé in the 1958 World Cup in Sweden," the normally exaggeration-phobic England coach said.

As Steve McClaren's side failed to qualify for Euro 2008, the Euro 2004 echo could be considered misleading but there was no mistaking Rooney's need to pick up the thread of tournament goalscoring, especially as he had not sniffed out the target for England since the 5-1 win over Croatia last September.

So the World Cup family watched at the imposing Green Point Stadium in Cape Town to see whether coaxing a good tournament performance from England is beyond even Fabio Capello and whether Rooney has yet recovered his zip and zest, the man-crushing and net-ripping power that earned him the title of last of the street footballers.

The news is discouraging on both fronts. Against the world's 30th-best nation England, ranked 22 places higher, were an apology for legitimate World Cup contenders and Rooney was so subdued that Capello might have felt half an urge to bring him off when he instead withdrew Emile Heskey in favour of Jermain Defoe in the 74th minute.

Whatever Rooney achieves in South Africa will require an inner victory over the frailties holding him back because it all looks woefully like labour, as if he were a pianist whose timing has temporarily deserted him.

Almost his first act was to misdirect a simple pass to Steven Gerrard to an opponent. In the first half his shooting lacked crispness and his dashes and darts lacked the velocity that made him such a quick-moving terror for Manchester United.

Perhaps the most ominous sequence in an abject first period for England came when Rooney was one on one with Algeria's Foued Kadir on 38 minutes. An on-song Rooney would have made Kadir wish he had stayed in bed by asserting his menace and muscularity, yet here it looked an even contest and the bouncing ball ran on harmlessly.

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