Well, if like me you're an Englishman with sufficient Irish ancestry that you could qualify to play for Ireland if you weren't utterly crap at rugby (I did once score a try at school, and for the team I was on, but it was by accident) then this year's tournament has been rather depressing. OK, I expected England to be poor - the draw that pretty much set us up to lose to Australia in the QFs is annoying, I'd have rather got the All-Blacks and been able to accept defeat without being gloated at - but Ireland's poor performance has just made things worse. At least England showed against Samoa that they do appear to have some inkling that there is a modern game out there. It's not enough to beat Australia, quite possibly not enough to beat Tonga, but it's a start.
Why won't they beat a good team? Because too often the ball is being passed to a stationary man, who then runs forwards. Or they kick the ball deep to a waiting opposition player who has all the time in the world to kick the ball into touch. Against a team that is actually good at lineouts (or merely adequate), then the middle half of England's play would see them lose.
A further improvement in their game by Friday might see England get past Tonga. They'd need an even further improvement to get past the Aussies, but that's asking for too much.
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