There's something wrong with England. Nobody can quite put their finger on it. But so worried have the English media become, and so excited are their local and French counterparts, that there's been more negative vibes directed at them than you can shake a stick at.

Since Thursday, when about 150 journalists and any number of television crews descended on their hotel in Manly, virtually every question has been loaded with negativity. Clive Woodward and Martin Johnson find themselves, to their palpable irritation, constantly defending England's performances to date, continually pointing out that, hey, we've won all our matches and by at least a couple of scores.

"We're not Torvill and Dean, we're not here to get marks out of 10," said Woodward in exasperation at one point. "We're here to win rugby matches."

And yes, so far they've done that. And yet, and yet, something is wrong with England.

Woodward accepted that England did "look a yard off the pace in the first half against Wales" last week, and that they may have been overtrained before that game in the warmer climes of Brisbane.

Phil Larder, happy to talk as candidly as ever in a quiet corner of the room during the media scrum that followed, later took some of the blame for that on behalf of himself and Robinson.

"I think we were a bit fatigued last week, which was probably down to Robbo and myself more than anybody else. Robbo and myself do a hell of a lot of analysis, and every team is so different and you want to cover everything. Probably we didn't realise how tiring the sun is up on the Gold Coast."

"I have to say that I don't think it has anything to do with our preparation over the last six to 12 months," said Woodward, though, of course, he would say that, "because we've actually come through very strong at the end of a game. When we've needed to, everybody has got it right for the last 20 minutes, and we've won the game.

"This week, we're under no illusions. Unless we start correctly like we normally do, this is not a team we want to be chasing. So we've had a couple of light sessions this week.

"Last night we trained for about an hour and tonight is about mainly jogging through. The players are ready and we've just got to make sure that we're sharper than the French come Sunday night."

Yet, in that comment, Woodward might also be expressing an inner concern that the French have looked fresher in this tournament. And there might be a simple reason for that.

Woodward couldn't resist taking all his thirty-something frontliners down to New Zealand and Australia in the summer to maintain their winning run and throw down markers for the World Cup.

In stark contrast, Bernard Laporte had one eye firmly fixed on keeping his thirty-something forwards fresh for the World Cup when les Bleus had a three-test tour to Argentina and New Zealand in the summer.

Raphael Ibanez, Jean-Jacques Crenca, Olivier Brouzet, Fabien Pelous, Olivier Magne and Serge Betsen were all excused duty.

France lost all three games, but no less than England's back-to-back wins over the All Blacks and Australia, what will they be next Monday but footnotes in rugby yearbooks?

Woodward has repeatedly conceded that his team have been playing too narrowly. This could be interpreted as a signal that an elderly side are subconsciously trying to pace themselves. But it would also tally with them being a little "stale", as Mike Catt suggested.

However, you'd wonder too about the constant Dad's Army baiting. Surely it will only serve to annoy and provoke a big response from some of the legends of English forward play.

Lawrence Dallaglio, having agreed to a quick interview with three radio and television reporters on the balcony of the team hotel overlooking Manly beach across the road, was taken aback by the opening question.

"Sum up how you feel about this tournament because you're not getting any younger, and this is your last chance?"

"Very kind of you to point that out," answered Dallaglio, heavy on the sarcasm.

"I'm very, very excited. Clearly it is the last World Cup for myself and a number of players, but it remains an opportunity to achieve something that I want to achieve," he added, and then turned to look his inquisitor in the eye, "but similarly the French have a number of players who are also playing in their last World Cup and probably have the same feelings as I do."

Dallaglio hasn't been his eye-catchingly brilliant self as, say, he was in his man-of-the-match performance in the Dublin Grand Slam decider last March. One recalls him being heavily criticised last autumn as well, though he was clearly training to peak later in the season, and duly did so.

The older a player gets, the more he's learned of his own body and how to pace himself and when to deliver big performances. Besides which, Dallaglio is the prime example of a big-game player, and in any case, these things are relative.

One cannot recall Dallaglio losing a ball in contact during the tournament.

Taking a deep breath after escaping the media frenzy and group interviews, he leans against a bannister and smiles when you suggest he might be keeping his best rugby for the end of the tournament.

"I think there's a general feeling at the moment we're playing about as well as we have to, to win games, and that's certainly been reflected in the performances so far.

"It's not until we're staring down the barrel of games that we're actually starting to perform against South Africa, Samoa and Wales. Clearly the opposition we're playing this weekend is a significant level above anything we've played in the tournament so far. But I believe we have the strength of character and leadership, both individually and collectively, to lift the level of our performance to what it needs to be to win."

The flip-side of all this, of course, is that by comparison France haven't been tested in a tight game yet.

"Yeah, for two reasons. One they've been playing well, there's a lot of confidence within their team, but with no disrespect to Ireland, who had a good tournament, and no disrespect to Scotland and the other teams, I don't think France have been put under significant pressure.

"They have been for a few periods, but without being statistically boring, they have conceded nine tries, whereas we've conceded four, so there are holes there, no doubt about it. There will be opportunities there."

Dallaglio also knows the Betsen-Magne-Imanol Harinordoquy back row as well as any opposing trio in test rugby, and alluded to them not being the best back-foot back row in the world.

"Everybody talks about their back row, who have showed up very well, but there's nothing new about that. We know the quality of their players but their tight five have also been giving them a platform to perform.

"It's important that we put them under as much physical pressure as possible and really make them work exceptionally hard for every yard that they get, which is not something they've had to do in this tournament."

Dallaglio rejected Catt's suggestion that perhaps England had gone a little stale.

"Clearly we've been playing a little bit narrow, there's been an element of predictability about the way we've been playing, which is unusual for us.

"But the great thing is that without doing too much to the team we have the ability to change that, and we feel that we'llhave to do that if we're going to beat France."

With that in mind, Larder was also surprised at the manner Ireland attacked France. What he calls zig-zag rugby, attacking France two or three times off the ruck one way and then the other, he maintains Ireland probed the points around the number 10 channel where France defend strongest, where Serge Betsen patrols, and where they push up quickest.

"We won't do that, we've got to move them around more. So I was very disappointed in the way you played them, whether that was because you expended so much energy in that Australia match and Argentina I don't know."

Further analysing the French defence, Larder ventured that "certainly their line speed up off first and second phase is as quick as anybody's. But the way that Ireland play you tend to want to put whoever's playing at 10 under a lot of pressure. The fact that you use Maggs so much to try and get go-forward ball in virtually the same area means that anybody who is playing against Ireland at the moment will work very, very hard on their line speed off first and second phase.

"They also use Betsen wherever they think they're going to try and strike you early, so he was defending outside 10 and he was picking up Maggsy every time he ran forward."

With Catt's lengthy distribution and playmaking skills now added to the mix, albeit at the expense of Mike Tindall's greater physical presence in defence, England would hope to have considerably more strings to their bow. "So the attacking coaches tell me," quipped the defensive coach.

The need for Catt wouldn't be so acute if Jonny Wilkinson's general play hadn't become so nervy and if he hadn't gone missing from his duties as first receiver because of an irresistible urge to take up the physical challenge of tackling and hitting rucks. Sometimes, having the most physical of test outhalves around can be a disadvantage.

Wilkinson has a workaholic mindset, and brilliant though he is, he is more of a methodical player than an instinctive one.

For example, after the Lions tour he set about improving his running game by having the Newcastle fitness director Steve Black install dozens of heavy punch bags into his gym so he could practise running and sidestepping with the ball while bouncing off them. He transformed his running game.

One also wonders about his ability to handle his increased celebrity status as rugby's best-paid player in the world after his Adidas advertisements with David Beckham.

The latter, married to a pop star, revels in the limelight that comes with fame. It doesn't seem to sit so easily on Wilkinson. "Pressure" has become his favourite word.

In searching for perfection, and in searching for the answers as to why he's been anything but perfect to date, Wilkinson was tieing himself up in knots when curiously agreeing to attend an open question-and-answers media session on Wednesday.

Take the following example (and there are any number of them); one meandering, ultra-calculating and intense response to a single question about preparing his place-kicking game for big matches.

"You have your own standards and that puts enough pressure on you during the week. You know what you expect of yourself and you go out there and you try and achieve it. You know you can't necessarily predict what it's going to be like accurately, but you do know it's going to be a lot of pressure, so you just go out there and you know what you want from yourself in training, and there's pressure in that.

"I like to keep setting high standards in practice sessions and try and finish the week knowing that if you place the ball anywhere on the field you know you can attack it and at least expect it, because you're more or less in control of where the ball is going.

"Once you get out there you just have to get on with it. The first one in the Wales game I thought was going over and it came off the post, and people in the crowd are going to make noises about that, but you throw the tee off the pitch and get ready for the 22 and wait for the next one. The next one went over and a few more after that which is great."

And so on and so on in similar vein. Wilkinson seems to be tieing himself up in knots to the same extent on the pitch. It prompted the question of the tournament from the Observer's ex-Welsh international back-rower Eddie Butler, who asked Wilkinson at an earlier press conference if all this self-analysis was in danger of making him "a basket case". The young fella seriously needs to chill out.

Yet it's because of this obsessional devotion to practice and preparation that no matter how unsure he might be in his general play, or even if he sees his first kick hit the upright, next time up he slips back into that old routine, and thereafter last Sunday he landed six out of six.

He's also landed four drop-goals in this tournament, four times as many as anyone else in the competition. So, even playing badly, he's still a match-winner. And therein lies the rub.

"One of the things about these guys is that they rise to the big challenge, and there's no bigger challenge than France," says Larder.

"I don't like criticising the Welsh, but the French is a massive challenge. We were quite critical of our performance last Sunday and I think it was some of the senior guys that were off the pace. These guys will be firing on all cylinders at the weekend, make no mistake.

"We're very fortunate to have five or six world-class players, and world-class players are big game players. That's why they're world-class players. The bigger the game, the better they play."

"And if you turn that around, that means that they don't really fear and respect the opposition at all times. Perhaps these big-game players don't quite fire at the same level."

Overplayed maybe, overtrained last week by their own admission, but over the hill is another matter altogether.

Head to heads

Played 82. England 45 wins, France 30 wins, 7 draws.

Biggest wins

England: 37-0, London, 1911.

France: 37-12, Paris, 1972.

Highest scores

England: 48-19, London, 2001. France: 37-12, Paris, 1972.

Previous World Cup meetings 1991: (Quarter-finals)

France 10 England 19 (Paris).

1995: (Third-place play-off)

France 19 England 9.

Leading points scorers at RWC '03

England: Jonny Wilkinson 74. France: Frederic Michalak 101.

Leading try scorers at RWC '03

England: Will Greenwood, Josh Lewsey 5 each.

France: Christophe Dominici 4.

Betting (Paddy Powers)

4/7 England, 20/1 Draw

11/8 France.

Handicap odds (France +5pts) 10/11 England, 16/1 Draw, 10/11 France.

Forecast

France to win.