England's win against the United States was convincing and satisfying to watch.

Hopefully, the 45-7 success last Thursday will help to build momentum for Eddie Jones’ team, going into their two final pool games against Argentina and France.

At the Kobe Misaki Stadium, England’s performance was much more in line with what I think fans were expecting, prior to the start of the tournament. They reverted to a tight, scrum and maul-centred game, where they had clearly identified a weakness in the USA side.

It’s difficult to single any forwards out in particular, but the front five certainly displayed a huge amount of dominance.

George Ford was also impressive at 10, his control and game management was superb. It was great to see Ruaridh McConnochie score his maiden Test try, too, and I’m sure that’s something that will certainly boost his confidence for any remaining opportunities which may come his way throughout the tournament in Japan.

England were lucky not to be reduced to 14 men within the first 10 seconds of the game, though.

Piers Francis’ challenge from the kick-off certainly looked high, and under the new high tackle framework, he can count himself fortunate not to have received a retrospective ban.

Next up for England will be Argentina on Saturday morning. It’s a clash which will give England a real test at the set-piece.

Argentina are renowned for their scrummaging prowess and demonstrated that at times against France in their opening game, which they narrowly lost. Mario Ledesma’s team are probably the most emotionally charged team in World Rugby and, on their day, they are capable of beating anyone.

They have vastly improved since their integration into the Rugby Championship and, despite 10 consecutive losses in the lead-up to the tournament, they cannot be taken lightly.

This weekend, Agustin Creevy will also become the Pumas’ most-capped player if he makes an 88th appearance in Tokyo and this will, undoubtedly, spur the team on.

If you add to that, Jones’ comments about Argentina “playing for their lives”, which is another definite way of provoking that emotional response, and the Pumas are bound to be up for the match. But if England can control the set-piece and assert dominance, they should come through without too many issues.

The shock of the tournament so far was, without doubt, hosts Japan’s 19-12 win over Ireland on Saturday.

It goes to show in sport, especially a physical game like rugby, if you are complacent, you will get turned over. Japan were superb against Joe Schmidt’s side and completely shut Ireland down on the gain line.

They didn’t allow Ireland to play with the width or intensity they are accustomed to. Ireland, under defence coach Andy Farrell, rely on getting off the line defensively and closing teams’ space down in attack.

But, because Japan were getting such quick ball, Ireland’s defence was constantly on the back foot, and not able to recover and pose any sort of meaningful counter to the Japanese attack. Despite this, Ireland still had an opportunity on 80 minutes to launch a counter, and salvage a draw.

Somewhat outrageously, however, Joey Carbery kicked the ball long, and out of play after the “gong” had sounded to signal the end of the match when the ball next went out of play, to the amazement of almost everyone watching.

In high-pressure environments, in the heat of the moment, these things can happen.

Players become unaware of timings in games and pressure sometimes has strange effects.

Head coach Schmidt showed great man-management in his post-match interview and backed Carbery up, saying he had wanted to cement the losing bonus point. If this were the case, Munster man Carbery would have turned round and kicked the ball dead over his own try line - it wasn’t the actions of someone aware of the timings and consequence.

I remember a similar situation during my time at Harlequins. We were in the final of the European Cup against Montpellier in 2016.

After 80 minutes, we were trailing by one score.

Ben Botica, our fly-half, hadn’t realised the time was up and kicked possession straight to Montpellier, who couldn’t believe what had happened... Neither could we!

Carlisle’s Chris Harris, who qualifies to play for Scotland through his grandmother, was really impressive in their win against Samoa on Monday.

I was delighted to see him get his first start of the tournament and it was just reward for his performance off the bench against Ireland in their opening-match 27-3 loss. It has been fantastic to see former Carlisle Rugby Club man Chris, now at Gloucester, take every opportunity that he has been given in the Scottish jersey.

He is a superb defender, and reads attacks brilliantly. He also has the ability to score tries.

I hope he keeps his shirt for their next match which will see Gregor Townsend’s team take on Russia next Wednesday.