Alastair Hignell column: Chalk and cheese, men and boys, wheat and chaff, sheep and goats. Whatever the comparison you care to make, England don't come out well.

The evidence from last weekend's opening round of matches in the RBS Six Nations championship was that England are playing a different type of rugby to all their rivals – and not in a good way.

England, it is true, scored five tries in beating Italy at Twickenham, but they were immeasurably helped by a suicidal selection gamble which pitched a flanker in at scrum-half and failed so disastrously that the game was over as a contest with three tries inside the first 20 minutes, all directly attributable to mistakes made by the unfortunate Mauro Bergamasco.

But, for the rest of the game, England were as leaden and as lacking in ideas as Ireland and France were as spring-heeled and as full of them in the match that followed at Croke Park.

The contrast with Scotland and Wales who served up an even more electrifying Sunday special at Murrayfield was doubly painful.

Both games produced more wit, adventure and ball skills than England, it appears, can dream of at the moment. Each team provided instant master-classes for the men in white.

Ireland centres Brian O'Driscoll and Gordon D'Arcy demonstrated how to unlock defences with a simple expedient of picking the right line to run, while Ireland fly-half Ronan O'Gara operated right on the gain-line and yet still managed to control the game and kick his goals.

France's forwards showed how to offload under pressure and their backs showed how to take their chances.

For Wales, another centre, Jamie Roberts, demonstrated how to cross the gain-line, while wing Shane Williams showed how to open up defences and full-back Lee Byrne gave a master-class in the art of kicking for territory.

It's possible to take comfort in paraphrasing the much-quoted Jerry Guscott line that while these are world-class players performing near the peak of their powers, England don't at present possess individuals of comparable stature. But that is a cop-out. Irrespective of whether they want to take it or not, England's players are not being given the chance to show how good they can be.

While every other one of the Six Nations seemed intent on showing what they could do when they had the ball, England seemed preoccupied in playing without it.

Throughout the afternoon, the television pie charts showed that although England were comfortably ahead on the scoreboard, they still had less than 50 per cent possession.

The reason for that became obvious as the game opened up, the replacements came on and kicked even more ball away. If England wanted possession, they didn't want it for very long.

Now, I can see where those who argue that victory against Italy was vital to the rehabilitation of a side savagely mauled by southern hemisphere opposition in the autumn are coming from.

I can understand how important it is for new manager Martin Johnson, new attack coach Brian Smith and new captain Steve Borthwick to establish a winning habit.

And I can accept some of the arguments that South Africa won the World Cup on the back of a strong kicking game and an all-consuming blitz defence, while operating on considerably less possession than their opponents, making half as many passes, and setting up half as many rucks.

But I would also argue that if England want to play that sort of game, they don't have at their disposal the right sort of individuals to play it, and I would also argue that as rugby is constantly evolving, investing in a style that was successful in the past, under different rules, may not pay many dividends in the future. And I would argue that one of their tactics in particular defies all common sense.

It seems that England are so worried about the ability of their centres to breach the gain-line – in, for instance, the simple stunning and try-scoring way that O'Driscoll managed against France – that they'd rather cut their line-out and expect their back-row to gain them ground through a midfield which they have deliberately crowded.

And this weekend, up against reigning champions Wales, whose defence against Scotland was as stunning as their attack, it's tempting to trot out an old gag: "May the best team win," an England committee man is reported to have said in encouraging his players on to the field in Cardiff. "God, I hope not," was the England player's alleged reply!