There was a good deal of gallows humour in the media room at the Stade Velodrome in Marseilles, especially by the British journalists, before England's battle with Australia. When someone mentioned that a thunderstorm was forecast, one scribe quipped that it should come around 2.55pm to help England in what was considered to be their impossible task of defeating an upbeat Wallabies side.

And in preparation for France's battle to try to defeat the overwhelming favourites New Zealand, I had done some research on Saint Denis, whose name now graces the suburb where the stadium for the World Cup semi-finals and final is to be played. Saint Denis apparently brought the news of Christianity to the people of Gaul. As the first bishop of Paris he was martyred by being beheaded. Legend has it that to continue his preaching he picked up his severed head and carried it all the way to the suburb that now takes his name.

I'd prepared a joke to the effect that France really had to emulate Saint Denis if they wanted to progress in this year's tournament. Now the joke has turned on me, and all the other pundits who have totally misread what the likely outcome of this World Cup might be. Our excuse must be the "glorious uncertainty of sport."

After England had defeated Australia I wandered around the Old Port in Marseilles trying to soak up the atmosphere. There were hundreds of golden-jerseyed Wallabies supporters drinking at the bars and cafes with groups of England supporters, many of them draped in the Union Jack flag.

Someone asked me if I was going to put the boot into the Wallabies, the coaching management and some of the players. I told them that a lot of what would be said later on had already been said over the past two years. There will be a time for pointed analysis, but that time was not now. This is more a time for grieving about a chance lost to progress in the tournament.

Just one point, though. The weakness of the scrum was always going to embarrass the Wallabies sooner or later in the tournament. The first scrum with a Wallabies feed told its sad story. It was reset four times before the referee, Alain Rolland, gave the Wallabies a penalty. The next scrum was reset three times, and the Wallabies got a short-arm penalty. England's first put-in resulted in no resets. And, subsequently, England got penalties and massive shoves whenever there was a scrum.

I wrote in my notebook three times, when there were scrums near the Wallabies' try line, "another important scrum."

The problem for the Wallabies was that they were never able to match up in this area, even though their lineout was good. But for some reason, probably because they couldn't break through England's strong forward defence, the Wallabies did not drive much from their lineout wins.

There will be suggestions that "the Wallabies didn't want to win as much as England." Nonsense. The passion and desire was there, as the tears after the game showed. But, as the France-New Zealand boilover showed as well, momentum in sport is a mighty engine. England and France got momentum, a belief that they could and were, in fact, going to win.

The momentum in the end was irresistible. You could see it in the last plays of the match when England were in their own 22 and attacked the rucks and mauls and made telling tackles as if the game had just started.

In a sense, it has for England and France. No team has won a World Cup after losing a group match. Who is to say that one of these two teams, probably France, will be the first to emulate Saint Denis and achieve what has seemed to be impossible?