FOR those of us who like our sportsmen to have a bit of an edge, the return to form of Paul Casey at the weekend was most welcome.

One of a group of English players who, at one stage, looked likely to dominate the world game, there was a time when he looked the best bet to end the long wait since their countryman Nick Faldo won the last of his six majors 17 years ago.

Instead, it was Justin Rose who made the breakthrough last month at the US Open. I make no secret of having had considerable disdain for much of the attention Rose received in the 15 years since the premature claims of budding greatness that followed his decent performance at the Open at Sandwich in 1998.

Comparison with the coverage Paul Lawrie has received over the same period only reinforced my view that there are no such things as British national newspapers, merely English nationals that change a few articles for their Scottish editions in a bid to make a few more sales.

Maybe those responsible for the disproportionate amount of adulation that accompanied the five European and four PGA Tour titles won since his teeny-bopping fourth- place finish at the Open are now entitled to feel justified, though.

After all, he's achieved something that, for all the consistency of their money-making, Lee Westwood and Luke Donald have not managed to do in accruing, between them, 23 top-10, and 14 top-five, finishes in majors.

Increasingly, their careers are in danger of following that of Colin Montgomerie, their former Ryder Cup team-mate. He, too was a Europe stalwart and a serial order of merit winner, as Westwood has been in Europe, while Donald made history in 2011 by topping the money list on both sides of the Atlantic.

It is, of course, a very different matter holing crucial putts when released from the knowledge that the one coming back may also count, which is the key difference between matchplay and strokeplay.Consequently, Rose's victory in the US Open makes him entitled to be considered at a different level to his compatriot contemporaries as the one Englishman deserving to be bracketed with Lawrie. Had anyone predicted a decade ago, that a European country would produce four different major winners, who have accrued seven major titles among them, no-one would have doubted it would be England.

As Westwood was joined in the Ryder Cup team by Donald and Casey, then by Ian Poulter, while the English papers seized upon Justin's every sub-par round as evidence that the year of the Rose was nigh, it seemed just a matter of time . . . only for the lads from the Emerald Isle – Padraig Harrington, Graeme McDowell, Rory McIlroy and Darren Clarke – to steal their thunder.

For the reasons alluded to above, it seems less likely that Donald or Westwood, both former world No.1s, will join Rose in claiming major success, but what of Casey and Poulter? Both have had their moments of controversy. Casey was quoted as saying of the US Ryder Cup team: "Oh, we properly hate them. We wanted to beat them as badly as possible". Poulter, almost as infamously, claimed: "Don't get me wrong, I respect every professional golfer, but I know I haven't played to my potential. When that happens, it will be just me and Tiger."

In neither case was it the most judicious of comments and, in the way that the media does when at its worst, those who complain about the lack of personalities in modern sport seized upon those indiscretions.

What impressed me, though, was that neither wilted in the face of the reactions their comments prompted. Casey's spectacular loss of form that led to him to plunge down the world rankings came some six years after that fuss. More to the point, though, more than their fellow-countrymen, these two have demonstrated a capacity to win when the opportunity arises.

Commentators who focus on technique tend to be less complimentary towards them than their countrymen, but, taking into account how long they have all been professional, Casey's record of 12 European Tour wins and one in the USA and Poulter's 12 in Europe and two in the USA, compare well with those of Westwood (22 and two) and Donald (seven and five).

Just as the other Europeans have reason, then, to be grateful to Poulter for the way he set the tone on the final day at Medinah last year, and the Northern Irish trio to Harrington, so England's finest may now draw inspiration from Rose's success. It would be daft to rule out either Donald or Westwood, but, now that he has found the form to recover a four-shot deficit going into the final round to win the Irish Open, I have a sneaky feeling that either Casey or Poulter will be next.