France show why computers should not be trusted

After England's overwhelming defeat of the admired Ireland – how long ago it now seems – the London press, sober broadsheets as much as xenophobic tabloids, outdid even Welsh supporters of the 1970s in lack of realism and sheer conceit; which is saying something.

I did not undervalue the victory over an Ireland side who, as they showed against Scotland on Saturday, can pile up points even though they may be losing the set pieces. What I did do, several times, was warn against a French team in Paris who had already beaten South Africa and New Zealand before Christmas.

True, several of the young backs who had participated in those wins (every bit as significant as England's at Twickenham) were unavailable to the French coach, Bernard Laporte. But it was still clear he was moving towards the side he wanted, despite the disappointing performances against Italy and Wales.

Accordingly, I find myself slightly in the position of the late politician William Whitelaw, speaking on the Prom at Brighton to a friend and myself. Edward Heath had just told the Tory conference that it would be wrong to gloat over the misfortunes of the Labour government of the late 1970s. "I can tell you,'' Whitelaw said, "that I'm gloating like hell.'' It is one thing to be buoyed up with confidence; quite another to believe you are the best in the world. It is doubtful whether the England players really thought that. But no one could have blamed them if they had. They were certainly told it often enough over the past fortnight.

For this delusion the newspapers are primarily responsible. They fell for the Zurich financial services company's computer calculations with all the uncritical enthusiasm of a nine-year-old presented with a PlayStation on his birthday.

A few months ago I was seated next to a suit from Zurich at a luncheon. He was a perfectly agreeable companion, a Scot, as many of these insurance coves seem to be. He said that few people seemed to know what Zurich was or what it did. Hence the company's sponsorship of various activities and, in particular, its involvement in rugby union.

Nothing wrong with this. The company wants publicity and is prepared, up to a point, to pay for it. But the claim that a computer calculation can determine which country is, at any given moment, top of the world is frankly preposterous.

There is certainly a way of arriving at such a conclusion. This is not through the World Cup, which is partly dependent on the luck of the draw. It is, rather, through a competition involving Australia, England, France, New Zealand and South Africa. The countries would play one another home and away – something that does not happen in the Six Nations' Championship, though it should.

The competition could, I estimate, be completed before Christmas if it started early enough in the autumn. Alternatively, there is no reason whatsoever why it should not be held in the summer which, in northern Europe at any rate, is an entirely suitable season for rugby. The championship could be held at four-yearly intervals, by setting the gap between World Cups.

I do not, I may say, seriously suppose that such a competition will come about in the immediate future or, perhaps, ever. But it would be preferable to the somewhat haphazard pre-Christmas matches and the even more capriciously arranged summer tours. And it would dispose of pieces of nonsense like the Zurich computer.

It is doubtful whether England would have won in Paris whatever plan they had adopted, or however quick-witted they might have been in varying it. The surprising thing about the match was not so much that England did not adopt Plan B, if there was one. It was more that, according to several reports, they failed to implement Plan A.

Certainly, it was madness to think, as they presumably did once on the pitch, that they could beat this or, indeed, virtually any French side by running at them from inside their own 22. Martin Johnson foolishly chose to kick to touch near the goal-line when he should have taken the three penalty points on offer – though, to be fair, Jason Robinson's try came from one such adventurous decision. On other occasions Robinson, Kyran Bracken, Jonny Wilkinson and Will Greenwood, who otherwise had a fine match, were all culpable in failing to boot the ball into touch when they had the opportunity.

At one point Johnson, urging this course, looked round in despair. I sympathised slightly. The French crowd treated him as if he were the Demon Poisoner of Alsace who, along with the President's African Diamonds and the Headless Corpse in the Bois de Boulogne, is one of the staple subjects of French newspaper stories. Much worse things than Johnson's punch at Vicarage Road go on in French club rugby every single weekend of the season.