Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) -- England players struggled to find positives after a humiliating 5-0 Ashes defeat to Australia that underlined the gulf between cricket's top-ranked teams.

Australia's 10-wicket win in Sydney today completed a fifth straight lop-sided result as Ricky Ponting's team swept an Ashes series for only the second time in more than a century.

Less than 16 months after thousands packed London to laud England's first Ashes success in 18 years, captain Andrew Flintoff looked on as Australians doused each other in champagne at Sydney Cricket Ground. He said youth might be on his team's side when the rematch takes place in England in 2009.

``You look at the side in our dressing room, it's a young side,'' Flintoff told reporters. ``We've got to regroup. We've got to work on that now. We've got to get better.''

None of his bowlers averaged below 38 runs per wicket, with Matthew Hoggard taking a team-high 13 wickets. Four Australians got 20 or more. Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood were the only batsmen to average above 40, while eight of the opposition managed the feat.

``Probably we could have performed better a few of us but to beat Australia you need seven or eight of the lads performing whereas it's only been two, three, maybe four at the most in certain games,'' Flintoff added. ``That just isn't enough.''

Coach Duncan Fletcher said the series had come ``probably a winter too early'' after the loss of key players including captain Michael Vaughan and fast bowler Simon Jones to injuries. The team in Sydney had a combined 285 appearances compared with 787 for Australia.

`Big Losses'

``There's been some big loses to this side, huge losses, and it always takes time to fill those gaps,'' Fletcher told Sky Sports. ``When you get young guys coming into a side, they're always inconsistent and that's what happened.''

After getting steamrolled in the first Test in Brisbane, England blew its chance of gaining a foothold in the series as it amassed its best Ashes score in 20 years in Adelaide.

Australia captain Ponting, named man-of-the-series, was dropped by Ashley Giles on 35 and went on to score 142 as the home team rallied, making the draw an odds-on outcome entering the final day.

A 90-minute England collapse, inspired by leg-spinner Shane Warne, helped Ponting clinch what he termed ``as good a win'' as he'd played in as Australia cruised to a six-wicket victory. That was one of a series of slumps by England's batsmen and a blow from which the team never recovered.

``We were really competitive there and we just let the game slip away for one session,'' Fletcher told reporters. ``If we'd drawn that game and gone on, anything can happen.''

`Mistakes'

Fletcher, who has masterminded England's rise up the rankings, drew criticism after he and fellow selectors waited until the third Test to pick spinner Monty Panesar and the fourth Test to recall wicketkeeper Chris Read. Both players lifted England's performances.

``It's the second Test series we've lost in 11 or 12 and suddenly (the selection process) is wrong in this series?'' Fletcher said. ``When we won the Ashes, we made some mistakes.''

Pietersen, whose 490 runs were the second-highest in the series after Ponting's 576, said England had played ``really, really good cricket'' only to be undone by one of the greatest teams.

Australia is on a 12-match win streak, the second-longest in Test history. Warne and Glenn McGrath -- Australia's leading bowlers in its decade of dominance -- and opening batsman Justin Langer quit international cricket after the match.

`In Good Stead'

``For guys coming into their first series against Australia, to see how the likes of Shane Warne, (Matthew) Hayden, Ponting go at you on the field and mentally they try and get hold of your brain and try and wreck it over the course of six or seven weeks,'' Pietersen told Sky Sports. ``This will definitely stand the boys in good stead.''

Flintoff said the Australians had ``raised the bar.'' Losing 5-0 wasn't a ``nice feeling'' though he couldn't have asked more of his players, he said. He plans to use the Australian celebrations in Sydney as motivation.

``I've heard the Australians speak about watching on at the Oval (in 2005), they used that as a spur for this series,'' Flintoff added. ``For 2009, I'm sure that's something the lads will remember: it gives us the spur for that series.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Grant Clark in Singapore at gclark@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: January 5, 2007 00:52 EST