International rugby is said to be a week-to-week existence. That is exaggerating. Sometimes fortunes change hour by hour. It is only about two weeks since people were openly mocking the fact that Eddie O’Sullivan, coach of what was then a feeble Ireland, had been awarded a four-year contract. Now, with one late revival and one decent victory to his credit, people will be wanting Eddie to stay for life.

Take England. Anyone who regards their abysmal start to this 2008 Six Nations as a media invention is talking rubbish but here they are, effectively two hours on from all that travail and doubt, preparing to take out Scotland on their march to what can still be the title. Please do not talk long term of international rugby, please understand that - admittedly as part of an impatient world - it is the next match and even the next five minutes that puts you pack on track, brings you salve for all those apparently profound wounds.

It is said with justification that even the worst Scotland teams - like this bunch - always have one outstanding performance in them per season. They have horrified superior England sides on many occasions, causing a welter of Scottish fans to pipe up in celebration when they themselves were doom-laden before the match. But again, England can ignore horizons, they can try to beast Scotland up front as they beasted France, and one more short afternoon will be added to a revival.

Naturally, it would be lovely if England’s backs were firing but yet again yesterday, we saw that their back three as a unit does not exist and the trio of inside backs are really not an attacking springboard. But so what? This is an activity that changes by the hour and in which momentum is everything. England must try to power up their pack even more, must try to demolish Scotland up front, to bring Jonny Wilkinson within kicking range.

It is also key not to rest on laurels and not to be loyal simply because of a victory. I will go to my grave – hopefully, at some distant point in the future – believing that Josh Lewsey has been betrayed by his nonselection this season and to see England so faltering and so ineffective at the back yesterday merely reinforced my conviction. Lewsey must return for Edinburgh and it really is time that Olly Barkley, a tougher and more calculating player than Toby Flood, is given the chance at inside-centre.

The match may also mark the final and, in most ways, honourable departure of Mark Regan from the England side. Yet on a happier note, the recent fine form of Steve Borthwick in the lineout and in the loose, plus the effective arrival yesterday of Tom Croft, indicates that the general situation up front is healthy. Furthermore, Richard Wiggles-worth must be given another chance to snap at their heels.

And it seems to me again that England always thrive when they stop agonising about the structure of their game, when they stop stepping out of what is their comfort zone. These days, comfort zones are derided, as if they are quicksand or a pit of snakes. But what is wrong with being comfortable, when you take the field in a Test match, in how you are going to play?

Familiarity, even horrible familiarity, is far better than lack of focus and unease. When England blather on about expanding their game, when other countries mock their forward power just because they are terrified of it, they always falter.

But when they are sent out with a recognisable gameplan, with their scrummage on top and, as yesterday, with their big men driving up the hard yards and the back row hammering on into the secondary defence, they look so much better.

This team, in any case, will never be an attacking machine because with the ignoring of Lewsey and the sad absence of the injured Mike Tindall and Dan Hipkiss, they have neither the power nor the alacrity. But what is wrong, as we wait for the Cipriani generation to emerge, in giving France a good physical stuffing on their own patch?

Who will react best to yesterday? Hopefully, England will use the evidence of their experience and do what they did in Paris, only better. Will Marc Lièvremont hold up his hands and apologise for the attempt to construct walls without bricks or straw? Gradually, he has reintroduced real forwards into his squad after being sniffy and condescending about almost everything that happened in previous eras.

After a fascinating day in the life of this magnificent tournament, we also find that the title is Wales’s to lose. The true test of the Welsh was always going to be their trip to Dublin and if they do have a hard six-pack where once there was a soft underbelly, they can win in Dublin and complete a Grand Slam in Cardiff against France.

However, Ireland have now grasped the hour-in, hour-out nature of the beast. It seems that they, like England, have begun to ignore the future and that they themselves are still contenders.

And if Brian Ashton is in any more doubt, then I would recommend that he compares the taste of his breakfast this morning in Paris with the taste of his breakfast in Rome a fortnight ago. He will find his Sunday nosh augmented by the delicious taste of authentic victory. Marvellous.