The fact that Australia opted not to enforce the follow-on despite having England at its mercy shows that Ricky Ponting's team has already started planning for the second Test in Adelaide.
Ponting and his strategists would have toyed with the idea of sending England back in and totally demoralising the tourists after they were bundled out for an insipid 157 on the same pitch that has already yielded 783 to the Australian batsmen.
To kick them while they were down would have appealed to Ponting's ruthless nature. But the pragmatic decision was to give his bowlers a break, let the cracks in the Gabba pitch widen further and utterly flatten England's dispirited bowlers.
With an ageing attack, all-rounder Shane Watson unavailable to pick up some of the workload and the Adelaide match beginning next Friday, the Australians took the conservative alternative.
In the back of their minds was the bitter memory of Calcutta 2001 (when India followed on almost 400 in arrears and stole an amazing win) and the very unlikely prospect that England's batsmen might dig in the second innings.
The thought of a long bowling stint in the Brisbane heat followed by more back-breaking work on the notoriously flat Adelaide track later in the week made today's call easier.
Besides, good weather is forecast for the next two days in Brisbane and England's batsmen have already worked themselves into such a state about the Gabba pitch that Australia knows five sessions is plenty to capture the tourists' 10 wickets.
The much-debated pitch has only served to magnify the inadequacies of England's bowling and batting.
While there is no doubt batting was a far simpler proposition on days one and two, it did not generate into a minefield of yawning cracks and unpredictable bounce as England's first innings disintegration would suggest.
As English wickets fell with depressing regularity, batsmen would stare daggers at the batting surface as if they would have had the opposition bowling at their mercy if not for the pitch.
So why did it change so markedly when the Australians came out for a second time, and promptly breezed to 181-1 with the sole breakthrough coming courtesy of a run-out?
It didn't. It's just that Australia has employed tall seamers who hit the pitch hard, reliably plonk the ball in the areas where the cracks are and give the England batsmen so little scope for runs that the pressure builds from ball one.
The England bowlers, by contrast, can't maintain a regular length, do not stick to a plan that allows fields to be set and pressure exerted and serve up an infuriating number of four balls on which the Australians seize.
The best they can hope for is that this Test ends quickly and they erase it from their collective memories given that nothing has gone right for them from the moment the coin landed. And hope to regroup in Adelaide, where the Australians will be ready and waiting.
- ANDREW RAMSEY