GIVEN that it included New Zealand against Portgual, the organisers of the Rugby World Cup must always have feared that last weekend's fixture list was going to produce a mismatch that would call the credibility of the competition into question. Sure enough, their fears were confirmed.

All rugby fans must have winced at the sight of a side so obviously out of their depth being asked to take on one of the southern hemisphere giants.

There the minnows stood, like lambs to the slaughter, as their illustrious opponents ran in a succession of increasingly routine tries. Whenever they tried to kick the ball, they sliced it into touch. Whenever they tried to run it, they found themselves crumpled in a heap on the floor. In short, it was a painful experience to watch.

Still, enough about England's performance against South Africa - wasn't it good to see the plucky Portuguese redress some of the balance with a stirring effort against the All Blacks? Their 13-point haul was 13 points better than anything England had managed 24 hours earlier, and put the struggles of Brian Ashton's side into an even sharper focus.

Friday's pathetic display was the worst performance by an England side at a World Cup finals, and given the weight of expectation and history that is sitting on their shoulders following 2003's epic success in Sydney, arguably the worst performance by an England Test side full stop.

Things could get even worse still if the reigning champions lose to Samoa on Saturday - something that is hardly out of the question despite the South Sea Islanders' weekend defeat to Tonga - but even if England recover sufficiently to keep a quarter-final date with Australia, this tournament has exposed deep-rooted deficiencies at the heart of the English game.

Nothing short of a complete overhaul is acceptable now, and nothing should be sacrosanct as the Rugby Football Union attempt to ensure that the current shambles is never repeated.

For a start, both Francis Baron, chief executive of the RFU, and Mark McCafferty, chief executive of Premier Rugby, should fall on their swords. In the wake of the last World Cup, Sir Clive Woodward warned of a doomsday scenario if the two men failed to thrash out an acceptable agreement regarding the release and management of international players. Less than three years later, and with the paperwork still to be signed, that doomsday scenario has arrived.

Head coach Brian Ashton should not be immune to criticism either, despite only replacing the hapless Andy Robinson last autumn. Promoted to introduce a progressive approach in which youth was given its head, he immediately turned to England's Home Guard once things started to go wrong. The result has been the kind of laborious, one-dimensional rugby that the southern hemisphere turned its back on years ago. The international game has moved on. Once the World Cup is finished, so should Ashton.

The likes of Lawrence Dallaglio, Mike Catt and Josh Lewsey will disappear with him, but it would be wrong to assume that another shuffling of the pack will suddenly put England's house back in order.

Root and branch reform is required, both of the professional playing structure and the Academy system that is failing to produce enough players boasting the skills and mindset to succeed at international level.

Premiership clubs, mindful of the need to avoid relegation, are churning out an army of well-honed athletes capable of crashing their way through the attritional rugby that currently characterises the domestic game.

Get the ball into their hands, though, and the next crop of internationals tend to freeze. Unless that changes quickly, performances like last Friday's will rapidly become the norm.

While England's rugby players toil away aimlessly, the country can at least lay claim to one set of World Cup performers who are going from strength to strength.

England's women have done superbly to reach the quarter-finals in China, with Sunderland-born midfielder Jill Scott at the fore.

Without wanting to sound patronising, much of the football played in last week's goalless draw with Germany and this week's 6-1 win over Argentina was excellent, with the pace and precision of some of the passing putting England's men's side to shame.

It is only to be hoped that the national side's success will finally help to raise the profile of a domestic league that remains dreadfully under-funded and unexposed.

Young girls are at the forefront of an obesity epidemic that threatens to adversely affect the nation's health for generations, but a professional women's football league would unquestionably help to get more and more of them exercising regularly.

For that to happen, though, England's existing women's football clubs need support. So, if you're the parent of a young girl, take them down to The Hetton Centre on Sunday, September 30, to watch Sunderland take on Charlton in the first round of the League Cup. After all, it has to be better than the Hollyoaks omnibus.

And speaking of soap operas, was anyone really interested in the record $100m fine that Formula One chiefs dished out to McLaren last week?

If ever there was evidence of a sport disappearing up its own self-obsessed backside, that was it, and the saddest part of the story is that it overshadowed the death of Colin McRae, a motorsport event that actually mattered.