On a sweaty evening in Kobe last month, England still managed to score seven tries despite conceding a whopping 23 turnovers against USA . The following lunchtime, Scott Wisemantel faced the media at the team hotel. After evaluating his players’ display, the Australian offered a comment on the balance between attack and defence across the tournament so far. He finished with a more general observation. “Some things don’t change,” Wisemantel said. “Defences win World Cups.” England can be encouraged by that. Arriving in Japan on the back of a 37-0 win over Italy , they have conceded just 20 points and two tries over three matches at the tournament. Opposing sides have manufactured a meagre aggregate of 10 clean breaks. Curiously, both of those five-pointers were scored by teams down to 14 men in the final 10 minutes of games that had been sewn up. USA’s Bryce Campbell wriggled over for the first to end a ragged passage that England could have avoided entirely with a kick to touch: A week later, Argentina wing Matias Moroni slipped through from a strike-move. Mako Vunipola, clearly building back up to match sharpness, was wrong-footed by Santiago Carreras: Both lapses, especially the Pumas’…