Wales have less registered rugby players than Italy does yet no one expects Italy to win the world cup, So you could argue by size Wales always over perform at the world cup, England have the 3rd highest number of registered players behind the Boks and France with the most. So relatively speaking England finishing 3rd was the least we should have expected.
I'll point you to my earlier post re strength and depths of many teams substitute benches, and the relative inequality it creates, therefore restrict the number of substitutes allowed and level the playing field up for some countries. Lets not forget the numbers of Kiwis and pacific nation players on other national teams, to begin to really understand where the depth and breadth of rugby skills really lies. The pacific nation players for size of population outperform every other country, the likes of Fiji put northern hemisphere countries efforts into the shade eg Rugby 7's, Olympic Gold Medallists, Quarter finalists in the World Cup
