In fact, in their opening games, none have looked good enough to reach the last four, and some have looked so bad they’ll be lucky to qualify from their group.

The best four winning performances so far have come from Southern Hemisphere teams – Argentina in beating hosts France, and South Africa, Australia and New Zealand in racking up the points against three outsiders.

Taking the competition pool by pool, we’ll start with Pool D for the simple reason that it means we can avoid talking about England for as long as possible.

Pool D - that Argentina victory over France set the competition alight early, of course, and Ireland’s stuttering performance against Namibia suggests that the so-called Group of Death (what a stupid name) will see the Irish eliminated. But they’ll be hoping to improve, of course, and they have a game against Georgia before they face a French side desperate for an improvement.

Pool C – New Zealand hammered Italy, who are by no means as wide outsiders as many other teams, and looked class, but even though Scotland knocked up 56 points against Portugal, they weren’t brilliant. Nothing has happened so far in this group to suggest that the Kiwis are anything other than a team waiting to take the Webb Ellis Trophy home.

Pool B – Australia’s 91 points against Japan looks as good on paper as it did on the pitch, while Wales suffered from the jitters before seeing off Canada. In fact, they looked as if they might even lose for a time, so like all the other Six Nations teams, they want to do better. They play Australia next and, even in Cardiff, it’s hardly an easy one.

Pool A – England’s awful win over USA was easily the worst of the string of poor performances by British Isles teams, while South Africa brushed a strong Samoa aside and scored 59 points in the process. It’s only because of the weakness of the opposition that England have a quarter-final chance, but after that they’ll be coming home on their USA form.

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