KEY POINTS:
Among the phrases few of us would expect to hear this side of Armageddon - "Mine's an orange juice" (Keith Richards), "I can't see us winning this one" (Graham Henry) - is a recent one from England coach Brian Ashton.
"Yes, our lack of creativity is a worry,"
he admitted after the defeat by France in the last of the reigning champions' World Cup warm-up matches.
Creativity is not widely considered part of England's game: two tries during the knockout stage of the 2003 tournament at the spellbinding rate of one every 100 minutes tells its own story. But it is very definitely a part of Ashton's game, and at the moment he is struggling to fathom why his team seem incapable of stringing three passes together.
They put 60 points past Wales at Twickenham the other week, but the Lower Hutt under-nines would have fancied their chances against that rabble. In back-to-back tests against the French, they drew a big fat zero.
When they take on the United States in Lens on September 9, they will not have scored a try for the best part of three hours.
If it carries on like this - and things have reached such a pass that Ashton is likely to ask dear old Mike Catt to light a fire or two in midfield, which is precisely where Clive Woodward was four years ago - the coach will have only himself to blame.
Back in May, he took a third-string team to South Africa for tests in Bloemfontein and Pretoria, both of which turned into 50-point pastings. One of the few backs who made the Bokke think, if only for 20 minutes in the opening match, was James Simpson-Daniel of Gloucester, who scored a try and then caught Bryan Habana from behind. What happened? He failed to make Ashton's 47-strong training squad.
A few weeks later, when the coach performed his final cull, it was Toby Flood's turn to get the heave-ho. Now, Flood is no one's idea of a world-beater - not yet, anyhow. But he is the nearest thing England have to another Will Greenwood, and if the 2003 tournament told us anything, it was that Greenwood's attacking ingenuity allowed Jonny Wilkinson to concentrate on his kicking and tackling.
Flood, a subtle runner and distributor with a touch of the Stephen Larkhams, should have been one of Ashton's inside centres. Instead, England have gone for Catt and Andy Farrell.
There is no more controversial individual in the English game than Farrell. The suit-and-tie brigade at Twickenham spent a small fortune luring the best league player of his generation across the sporting Rubicon, despite considerable confusion over his optimum position. Saracens started playing him on the blindside, which was where the England coach of the time, Andy Robinson, initially saw him.
Within weeks, the rationale had changed. Mike Ford, the defence coach, saw Farrell playing in midfield and organising the defensive line. By the time the Six Nations came around, he was the first-choice No 12.
Unfortunately, he is the slowest No 12 ever to don the white shirt - and England have fielded some real carthorses down the years. Ashton, a league aficionado, has given him every opportunity, but there has been no sign of the goods being delivered.
Catt, now 35, is the clear favourite to play the big games. Flood, a highly promising 22-year-old, is back home in Newcastle, preparing to slum it in the Premiership.
England are getting ready to play it tight, perhaps even tighter than they did four years ago. They have a juggernaut pack, with three of their tight forwards - the props Andrew Sheridan and Phil Vickery, and lock Simon Shaw - up around the 125kg mark. Lawrence Dallaglio, who played really well for Wasps at the business end of the Heineken Cup campaign, is back between the shafts, and it is possible Martin Corry, an equally battle-scarred veteran, will join him in the back row.
There are some highly skilled forwards: Shaw is as good as any tight forward in the world, as is Matt Stevens, the Bath prop. They also have a new openside flier in Tom Rees. But all the indicators point to muscle and menace, not mesmerisation.
New Zealand and Australia will not fear them. Nor will France, now they have beaten them twice in succession. Many people in England expect the finalists to be drawn from these three teams, with the All Blacks ending their 20-year famine by lifting the trophy in Paris on October 21.
England would back themselves heavily if they found a way to reach the last weekend, but the old country is not holding its collective breath.
