In some ways it is a nice change to embark on a World Cup campaign without the weighty baggage of favouritism. As the pre-tournament front-runners in 2003 we arrived in Australia under more ­pressure than anyone else and occasionally it showed. I'm more than happy to have slipped into France under the radar, with so many ­people having written us off already.

Then again, as the entire squad knows, the element of surprise will be as useful as a ­chocolate teapot if we don't improve markedly on our recent performances. We haven't shown any consistency and have had a tendency to be good one week and poor the next. In a World Cup you cannot afford to be like that. For me, the biggest disappointment during our August warm-up Tests was our inability to reproduce our training ground form in the actual games. Our physical conditioning is good but it has been tough for Brian Ashton to get across his ideas in such a short space of time. We're very happy with what we're doing on the training field but, unfortunately, that is not where games are won and lost. We simply have to bridge that gap.

If my two previous World Cups with England have taught me anything, though, it is that even the most detailed plans can be shredded in an instant. Take the 1999 event as an example. The game had not been fully professional for very long and our fitness guy, Dave Reddin, was effectively required to reinvent the wheel. We were whisked off to Queensland and the conditioning part of our build-up seemed to last forever. We also spent hours planning for the South Africa quarter-final in Paris but no one ever imagined that their fly-half, Jannie de Beer, would go out and kick five drop-goals. The ­lesson we learnt from that was that in tight games, you need to find different ways to win.

That maxim remains true eight years on. Playing to a solitary strength isn't going to be good enough and from what I saw last month France are aware of that as well. You can't expect to go out and dominate in the forwards at this level because the margins separating most top international packs are very fine. We need to develop our own style but also have the confidence to adapt it on the big day, when or if required. As yet this side hasn't been able to do that and next time we run out it will be for real. We need to be very quick to judge on any given day how best to play and then be able to execute those plans effectively. What has killed us lately is too many little mistakes; hopefully we will ­rectify that, starting against the United States in Lens on Saturday.

There is one other crucial point to make. Winning World Cups is not about playing ­champagne rugby from beginning to end.

When you strip all the hype away, how many games in 2003 did we walk away from ­feeling totally satisfied with our performance, as opposed to the result? I'd say probably one: the semi-final against France in Sydney but because the 2003 team had a winning ­mentality, it didn't ultimately matter a great deal. Unfortunately the 2007 side cannot yet say the same. Unless the opposition lie down meekly in front of us, we can't afford to do ­anything other than ­perform to the best of our ability in every game.

What else can I see in my crystal ball? I would certainly expect the pool stages to be more ­competitive than at any previous event. Italy, Argentina and our Pool A opponents Samoa have all improved ­significantly and will push hard to reach the last eight. As for individuals to watch, I'd single out three from Leicester whom I know extremely well. Martin Castrogiovanni of Italy has been phenomenal and our coach, Richard Cockerill, thinks he is up there with the best tight-heads in the world. Now he has his stage. The two Tuilagi brothers from Samoa, Alex and Henry, can also change a game in an instant. Alex has made a big impact in the ­Premiership and now has the chance to show the rest of the world how good he is.

And England? We're not going to run around boasting we're going to win the World Cup again. We're just going to do our own thing and see how far it takes us.

·Martin Corry, England's back-row ­forward, will be writing for the ­Guardian throughout the World Cup