First up, Tony Smith's England side produced a commanding performance to demolish France at the start of their build up to this autumn's World Cup – which is now less than four months away.

Then 24 hours later, a Leeds team including 13 home-grown players and with an average age of 23 produced a stirring backs-to-the-wall performance in an 18-12 engage Super League defeat of Castleford Tigers.

The champions' six England representatives contributed fully to a fine win in Toulouse, which suggests that Smith's World Cup preparations are right on track.

France, it has to be said, aren't Australia. Things will only get tougher for England from here on in, with their top players facing up to 13 more games before the World Cup even kicks off.

But there was much to admire about the way England got the job done last weekend.

They played the game in an exciting fashion, as Smith's teams tend to do, and their defence was excellent, conceding just one try.

England scored 10 tries – and had a couple more ruled out by the video referees – with every one of them involving at least one Leeds player.

Kevin Sinfield, arguably the most consistent player in Super League, had an outstanding game, while Keith Senior proved that his talk of international retirement was premature.

Jamie Peacock made the hard yards up the middle and Gareth Ellis had an impact on the edge.

England's half-back combination is probably Smith's biggest – and most important – pre-World Cup dilemma.

He opted to start with Leon Pryce at stand-off, partnering Rob Burrow, with the latter's Rhinos team-mate Danny McGuire coming off the bench.

That is a formula which could cause Australia problems this autumn.

Pryce and Burrow are different types of players, but, as they showed against the Kiwis in last year's Test series, their styles complement each other perfectly, while McGuire has the pace and footwork to torment tiring defences when he comes off the bench.

In an ideal world, more than five clubs would be providing players for the England team.

But on the other hand, the fact the national side's pivots – Burrow, McGuire, Sinfield and Paul Wellens, Pryce, James Roby – are so familiar with each other is going to be a big advantage this autumn.

The Pryce-Burrow pairing was a big success for England and another major plus was the performance of Warrington Wolves centre Martin Gleeson, who wouldn't have made the trip if Smith had selected entirely on this season's form.

Gleeson has been poor at club level so far, but proved he hasn't suddenly become a bad player by scoring a fine hat-trick, a product of footwork and raw power.

England still don't have the sort of strength in depth the Aussies can call upon, so it is important the players on duty last weekend stay fit and others – like Keiron O'Loughlin, Gareth Hock and Jamie Jones-Buchanan – get back to their best.

Australia will remain red hot favourites to win the World Cup, but at this very early stage England have an excellent chance of at least reaching the final, which should be their minimum expectation.