The extraordinary turnaround in England’s World Cup fortunes has sent such an uplifting surge of self-belief through the squad that Brian Ashton was talking with confidence yesterday of taking his reborn team all the way to the final.

Out of the ashes of their stuttering campaign, England have risen to a place in a semi-final at the Stade de France on Saturday night against France and although the host nation beat England twice in their preWorld Cup games in August, Ashton, the head coach, says that those results count for nothing. “We can compete at the same level as France,” he said. “There’s no doubt in our minds on that. We should have beaten them at Twickenham and the players know that as well. We will go into this game with confidence.”

After England’s stirring defeat of Australia in Marseilles two days ago, past form is suddenly irrelevant. Both England and France, who beat New Zealand on Saturday, now feel that the momentum is with them, although Scotland were unable to complete the northern-hemisphere heroics last night, losing 19-13 to Argentina in Paris in the last quarter-final.

The questions for England are twofold: can they maintain the astonishingly high standards they rose to against Australia? And can they improve on them? “Yes, we can get better and we know we’ll have to,” Ashton said in response.

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“There’s no doubt that they’re good enough,” Rob Andrew, the Rugby Football Union’s director of elite rugby, added.

As England progress, the fallout from the World Cup quarter-finals continued yesterday with reports suggesting that Graham Henry will resign from his job as New Zealand coach. In Marseilles, a stirring display by Fiji threw up the possibility of another upset, although South Africa strengthened their resolve to win 37-20.

Three days ago, few England supporters would even have allowed their thoughts to stray to considering the genuine possibility of a successful England defence of the Webb Ellis Cup. Within the team, though, there is no doubting the feeling of intent. By reaching the semi-final stage, they have gone beyond the public’s expectation; within their group, they are not sated, they have just got hungrier than ever.

“There’s a big buzz in the dressing-room,” Martin Corry, the back-row forward, said after the game. “We feel that momentum is generating. We’re not ready to go home yet. We always want to improve. We’ve laid down the challenge: every game we have to improve.” Ashton’s confidence, he said, was based on the development of the players’ mentality as well as their clear improvement on the field. He mentioned Mathew Tait and Toby Flood as young men learning the required skills from those around them.

“It’s been good for these guys, just to be around people like Jason [Robinson] and the others from 2003,” Ashton said.