England need not panic as they can match anyone at the World Cup

It’s been a noisy old autumn for those in the England camp. If nothing else, the squad and management have been brought closer together by a reaction to their performances that they have considered borderline hysterical at times. Perhaps it is a perverse compliment. Not very long ago – and we’re talking within the careers of most of these fairly inexperienced players – England would have been well pleased with three-point defeats to the All Blacks and Springboks and a win with daylight over Australia. Nowadays, their public have come to expect more, not that it is obvious why.

So, once all the cacophony has died down, where are this England team? The prosaic answer is, pretty much exactly where we thought they might be before the skirmishes began. The hysterical will cry stagnation; the measured will note the lack of a cutting edge behind a pack as fearsome as any. They might very well think that that is enough for now.

Who else is ripping teams apart? The All Blacks can, but often don’t, and that’s about it. With home advantage and that pack, England are well placed for the World Cup, with a Six Nations in which to address the bits that aren’t working. Not that it installs them unarguably as first, second or even third favourites, but if they can emerge from their pool they will be match-hardened and capable of beating anyone in the one-off thunder of a knockout tournament.

Up front, they have a pleasing balance between competition for places and players that pick themselves. Of all the accusations, often contradictory, levelled at Stuart Lancaster, the most bizarre has been the notion that he is a tinkerman. He has tried a lot of players of late, it is true, but that has been an exigency of circumstance across a ludicrously timed tour to New Zealand and this autumn, in which he has been missing a raft of first-choice players. Anyone who has watched England closely in the last couple of years, including Lancaster, knows exactly what the first-choice line-up is for all but a handful of positions. One of the encouraging things about this autumn is that the line-up he has used is not it, even if those who have filled in, up front particularly, have proved themselves well worthy.

From one to seven, his first-choice line-up, assuming Steffon Armitage remains on the outside, is well known, even if Joe Marler, Dave Wilson and Dave Attwood have made compelling cases to break into it – and may yet do precisely that. A further benefit of the autumn is that Ben Morgan has put to bed – for now at least – the debate at No8. So that’s a settled pack – and a very powerful one at that. Most important box ticked.

The reason for all the noise is the situation behind the pack. It is undeniably the case that England’s back play, which has never been exactly swaggering, has lost what coherence it had in this year’s Six Nations and the summer tour to New Zealand. Danny Care’s form at scrum-half has dipped slightly, although hardly catastrophically, but the main problem, other than the on-going vortex that is the No12 shirt, has been the form of Owen Farrell. Lancaster’s biggest mistake this autumn was to pick Farrell on the basis of next to no game time. Bar 70 minutes against London Irish in September, his first start for Saracens this season was against Munster two weeks before the All Blacks match. He had a miserable game then and to throw him straight into Test matches against the best and second best sides in the world was a gamble that backfired. Even there, though, the suspicion is that, when fit and in form, Farrell is likely to remain Lancaster’s first pick at fly-half, notwithstanding George Ford’s neat performances in the last two weeks. Mental resilience, goal-kicking and a strong defensive game go a long way with coaches.

Another coaches’ favourite is the man who has stepped up at 13. Brad Barritt’s is a selection bemoaned by those who long for a touch of elan in their centres. The coaches will retort that the modern game does not favour such romance unless any cavalier can do the dirty stuff first. England won this game, despite Australia enjoying 50% more possession, just as they lost to South Africa when the reverse was true. Barritt’s defence has been key throughout.

Manu Tuilagi will create some offensive punch at least when, as is likely, he returns to the outside-centre berth. Mike Brown remains the go-to man at full-back, even if his attacking game this season is not what it was.

What England really lack, which New Zealand and, tellingly, Wales and Australia do not, are obvious answers out wide and, most glaringly of all, at inside-centre. That is where Lancaster and his coaches must devote the most attention in the Six Nations. But he is not a magician. He can’t create solutions that are not there.

For now, what he knows is what he has known for a while. England are not as good as New Zealand and they have a mental block of some kind against South Africa. But they fancy their chances against anyone on home soil. Which, handily, is just where the World Cup is being held.