England were left staring down the barrel of an 11th defeat out of 12 matches in Australia as their brief hopes of a second Test fightback collapsed in a heap.
The bare facts are that Australia head into day four with a 282 run lead and with nine second innings wickets intact after dismissing England for a seriously under par 236.
A day that began with so much promise, ended in much the same as every other day in the series so far, with Australia in total control and England licking their wounds.
In a catalogue of horrible days of Ashes cricket Down Under over the past three tours, it really takes something to keep putting up contenders for the worst of the lot.
But it appears to be the only thing that the England Test team are getting better at.
The job of keeping Australia’s bowlers at bay is rarely an easy one, but with Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood both on the sidelines, this was a golden chance for England to do just that.
And for the first session of the day that is exactly what Dawid Malan and Joe Root did in adding 123 without loss up to the tea break.
Just like they did for a time in Brisbane, England’s No.3 and No.4 made batting look rather straightforward in favourable conditions.
They put together another 100 run partnership - their third in Ashes cricket - to raise the hope that England might finally expose some fragility in the Aussie camp.
But we should all know by now that the Australians have more than one trick up their sleeve and in his first Ashes series young all rounder Cam Green showed just why they rate him so highly here.
Root had already eased himself past Sachin Tendulkar’s greatest yearly tally of 1562 and Michael Clarke’s 1595, and looked set to finally end his century drought in Australia.
But Green had other ideas and found just the right line and length outside off stump to give Root a working over before finding the edge that was safely pouched by Steve Smith at slip.
The game changed in an instant. Malan went from confident strokemaker to defensive blocker and Ben Stokes had to work hard to get himself in.
That is ok though. The game was barely halfway through, so if England had to absorb some pressure then so be it, there was plenty of time.
With Nathan Lyon whirling away at the other end and loving two left handers to bowl at, England faced down six successive maidens as the pressure continued to build.
It meant that when Mitchell Starc returned to bowl, Malan was desperate to cash in with the pace on the ball that he enjoys.
He cut one four away, but that wasn’t enough. He tried to do it again to one that was a little closer and he could only edge it to Smith at slip.
It was poor game management, because it meant England had gone from having two well set batsmen to having two in on nought and under pressure.
Ollie Pope is supposed to be the great young hope of English batting, but he is like a cat on a hot tin roof when he starts his innings, and against the wily spin of Lyon it is a recipe for disaster.
He charged at the ball, tried to flick it into the leg side and put it straight into the hands of short leg. Another soft dismissal.
Jos Buttler is having a rotten match, and his 15 ball duck meant it didn’t get any better with the bat as Starc kept tempting him outside off stump until he edged to David Warner at slip.
With a white ball in his hand Starc was smashed all over the park by Buttler in the T20 World Cup, but this is a different game and is exposing the England keeper in the most cruel way.
As is so often the case, the wicket of Root sparked the collapse of four wickets for 19 runs to leave England on their haunches.
Chris Woakes and Stokes took England past 200, but Lyon was turning the ball sharply now and did for the former with one that turned past the inside edge and into the stumps.
Ollie Robinson became England’s 48th duck of the year, to put the annual record of 54 in greater jeopardy, before Stokes and Stuart Broad perished having a thrash.
Somehow a position of promise had become yet another mauling at the hands of the rampant Aussies and the players have to take a certain level of responsibility for their inability to be able to cope technically or temperamentally with Test cricket Down Under.
But when you consider that Australia’s extreme fast bowler (Starc) and their spinner (Lyon) took a combined 7-95 while England refused to pick either of theirs, it is clear that the blame for yet another horror show lies as much off the pitch as it does on it.
