Ireland 9 England 20: Ireland leave these shores tomorrow, destined for New Zealand and the 2011 World Cup.

The evidence of the past month — defeat in four successive Tests — points to a team far short of the quality necessary to make a positive impact.

But Ireland’s poor form goes back a lot further than August 2011 which opened with Scotland beating them 10-6 at Murrayfield in the first of the World Cup warm-up Tests.

Consider: since completing the Grand Slam in 2009, Ireland have played 22 matches, only nine of which ended in victory. One was drawn and the other 12 lost, so Ireland’s problems are not new.

Bear in mind the fact that 2010/11 began with them losing two of their four Guinness Autumn Series outings following which they were beaten in two of last season’s Six Nations fixtures.

The writing has been on the wall for some time, for prior to that they lost both of their summer 2010 games in New Zealand and Australia. And that two-Test tour followed a Six Nations series in which the previous term’s all-conquering champions lost two of their five matches.

Those facts, coupled with the four most recent performances, do not inspire confidence ahead of the World Cup which, in Ireland’s case, kicks off against the USA in New Plymouth on September 11. Even as I write the spectre of 2007, Namibia and Stade Chaban-Delmas begins to rear its head.

Ireland failed to score a try in three of the just-ended four Test series — and two of the trio they got against France in Dublin came when the visitors, knowing the match was won, wound down.

So Saturday was but the latest in a series of sub-standard Irish displays, albeit that two things served to bring it into sharp focus.

Firstly, with it being Ireland’s last outing before the World Cup, that heightened awareness of the paucity of the performance.

Secondly, given that Ireland beat England 24-8 back in March there was a yardstick against which to gauge the rivals’ current states of health. Diagnosis? England have neither creativity nor style; they are a Plan A-only side, devoid of flair or grace. That said, they have a formula and their basics are solid. As coach Martin Johnson put it: “I’d sooner win ugly than lose pretty.”

Ireland? Ireland are in a critical state.

Does Declan Kidney even know his best 15 at this stage? Who is his first-choice out-half? Scrum-half?

In addition to the loss of David Wallace there is concern about captain Brian O’Driscoll’s shoulder problem. Just how serious is it?

If O’Driscoll is absent, who wears 13? Keith Earls? His defence — or lack thereof — was cruelly exposed by England’s man-mountain centre Manu Tuilagi a mere five minutes into Saturday’s Test.

Back row? Wallace’s injury has robbed that unit of a genuine ground-making ball-carrying open side.

On Saturday Jamie Heaslip, who currently looks a shadow of himself, bowed out after 35 minutes with what Kidney said was “a bang on the head”. That left

Stephen Ferris the only Irish back row starter still on the pitch — and this was his first start to a match in seven months.

What is the likelihood of him going through a World Cup injury-free?

Although Kidney looked a worried man on Saturday evening, he remained defiant when asked about the four-Test programme to which he had subjected his team.

“I knew we needed games to get us going. If you’re going to go to the World Cup, if you want to go to compete at the highest level, England and France are the perennial semi-finalists, finalists and winners so we wanted to test ourselves against the best to find out exactly where we were.

“We know now and we know what we have to work on.”

England captain Mike Tindall, whose man of the match display included a clever kick through in the 46th minute enabling Delon Armitage to score the guests’ second try when they were down to 14 men, assessed Ireland’s tactics — and England’s ability to counter them — thus: “Every time they kicked to the corner they didn’t get anything.”

But perhaps the most telling post-match comment of all came when Tindall said: “We had to win to get on the plane in a lot better condition.”

On that note one wonders what conditions will be like in Irish heads as they jet off tomorrow?