And that is when he felt England would take a stranglehold on the competition.

Laporte pointed to Australia’s defensive backbone, which conceded just one try on their road to glory four years ago, as the key to their success.

And while it might not go down well with the Aussie media, who have laid into England without mercy for an apparently poor performance against South Africa last weekend, the French schemer does not believe the basis for ultimate victory has changed.

“Defence won the last World Cup and it will be the same this time,” said Laporte.

“Who has the best defence – England. The best part of their game is defence, the second best is defence and their third best is defence. Even the try they scored against South Africa came from their defence. It isn’t boring. It’s fantastic and you have to admire it.”

United States centre Juan Grobler was the only man to breach Australia’s line four years ago and though England’s defensive coach Phil Larder has claimed a similar situation this time round is impossible to envisage, significantly Clive Woodward’s side have yet to concede a touchdown in their two matches so far.

And that makes them dangerous potential semi-final opponents for France, who have largely been ignored as contenders as the focus shines on England, New Zealand and Australia.

Ahead of Saturday’s encounter with Scotland at Telstra Stadium, Laporte is not too concerned about that and there was a sense of kidology in his manner as he summed up the leading contenders.

“It’s logical the attention should be on England, New Zealand and Australia because they are the three best teams,” he said.

“England are the number one for me because they have hardly lost in years. Their team is complete and more mature than the others although maybe the gap is closing with New Zealand, although I think it will be Australia who get closest to them.”

For all his praise, Laporte also knows his team were the last to defeat a full strength England side, when Gerald Merceron and Imanol Harinordoquy crossed in the 20-15 Six Nations win in Paris last year which robbed Woodward of yet another Grand Slam.

England went on a record 14 game winning streak after that reverse, but that too was ended by France in the World Cup warm-up, although it was a largely second string side which suffered a 17-16 reverse in Marseille.

Those victories will ensure there is plenty of confidence in the French camp if, as expected, they do face England in the last four, a meeting which would move a step closer should Laporte’s team overturn Scotland in Sydney this weekend.

Although his team will not be confirmed until tomorrow, Laporte expected to be choosing from a full-strength squad now prop Sylvain Marconnet has overcome his long-standing thigh problem.

And, with decent if unspectacular wins over Fiji and Japan already behind them, there is no reason to think France will fail.

“We are happy with where we are so far,” said Laporte.

“We are scoring tries, played well against Fiji and, apart from one section of the game, did well against Japan.

“Scotland will be difficult opponents, as they always are, but we will go all out to win the group because it would be a very important milestone for us.”