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How will England react this Saturday against Ireland? Will the poor performance in Paris be enough to galvanise the squad into playing well or will mounting pre-tournament pressure prove too much? As someone who played for England, I hope it is the former but for me there are some concerns over how they are approaching the competition.

Let's start with the players. If we listen to Chris Robshaw, Paris was a blip and this weekend we will see a good performance against Ireland. Confidence will have been dented, that's for sure, but I don't think they should dwell on that for too long. When you spend time together as a group in an intense, close environment, confidence breeds from within. England players can look around the room at their base in Bagshot and feel happy that, on their day, they are in a position to beat all of the teams they will face. That said, should that other team perform too, they could fall short.

Historically, England have always had a good pack on which to build. Events in Paris were alarming though. Graham Rowntree's aim of set piece domination was torn to shreds and fell worryingly short. The scrum was all over the place. Dan Cole will no doubt have addressed the issues he was having. Yes the pitch was embarrassingly poor but both sides had to deal with it. England seemingly couldn't. It doesn't take much for one area of the game to become the focus and for whatever reason - be it the talk of missing Hartley or the lack of recent accuracy when throwing in from England's current three hookers - England's set piece is now under the microscope. The lineout is a source of possession and they will want to improve their return from it. Percentages are low and time is running out to get a fully functional system back into place.

Sides that have gone on to win Rugby World Cups in the past have had solid foundations with world class players across the field. You need at least five truly world class operators to be in with a chance. The question is do we have them? For me, Anthony Watson and Jonathan Joseph are very close to being in that category now. They add a huge amount of spark to England's attacking play and threaten defenders, something we didn't manage to do in the opening 40 minutes in Paris. George Ford, who starts again on Saturday, needs a good performance to get him back to where he was and he has Owen Farrell breathing down his neck. I liked how he has been playing and I am sure he will be world class one day but the consistency we see from other fly-halves isn't there at the moment. Let's not forget though he has relatively little experience and is young.

Billy Vunipola during England's Captain's run at the Stade de France© David Rogers/Getty Images

In the pack, Billy Vunipola, especially the new streamline version, looks like he can perform as a world class player for England but we don't have anyone I think other teams would fear. I think Sam Burgess will improve with each game now and this weekend is an opportunity to potentially push Barritt for his shirt. Henry Slade will be world class but he needs time. His performance against France showed enough to change the rapidly forming selection opinion of his coaches and it's exciting to see such a young player make that sort of impact.

The coaches' approach to the style of play is interesting. They want to win the Rugby World Cup. All coaches do, of every team. But Lancaster, Rowntree, Farrell and Catt have a home tournament and a nation waits in hope. To win they need to play a style of game that allows them to create opportunities to score.

At the moment I think they play not to lose.

They seem to be forming a game plan around a style which relies on Watson and Joseph to do something out of this world rather than manufacturing chances. There is a difference. In my opinion, England won't win the competition by defending and kicking penalties. England will beat Uruguay and Fiji. Australia and Wales are a different task altogether - that's only to get out of the pool.

We can't be a side that defends for our lives and are blunt in attack. We tried to use the battering ram approach in Paris two weeks ago. What Danny Cipriani showed in his short cameo was the benefit of having two ball players in the side. Working as a pair with Ford, Cipriani created a huge amount with Ford who had looked a shadow of himself prior to that. It creates options and allows England's runners to do what they do best.

Will they really change the way they play? No. I think it's a shame though but maybe it's just too soon. That might be something they can do for the next World Cup. A good performance and a win against Ireland this weekend and I think England fans will be much happier as the run in to the Fiji game begins.