Rugby: Toss gives Fiji white jersey, home advantage in opener

England's rugby head coach Stuart Lancaster. Photo / Francois Mori

England will have to wear their red away kit instead of traditional white for their opening World Cup match against Fiji at Twickenham despite being tournament hosts.

Fiji's jersey is also white, and the team will wear their home kit after winning the toss at meeting of the team managers' of all the competing nations.

The Pacific Island side have been designated the "home" side for the September 18 fixture, so will use England's normal changing room, forcing coach Stuart Lancaster's side into the smaller "away" changing room.

England are understood to be relaxed about the outcome, and both sides are more concerned that the time demands of the World Cup opening ceremony before the match will not leave them enough time to warm up for the game.

Lancaster oversaw an expensive facelift of England's home changing room at Twickenham as part of a 70 million ($167.8 million) redevelopment of the stadium.

But it is understood that state-of-the-art facilities such as the hydrotherapy bath, direct access to the gym and big screen on a central pillar will be decommissioned for the tournament to ensure neither changing room has a significant advantage.

The tournament requirements for "neutral" rooms mean all the team-branding Lancaster has overseen in the last two years to create a stimulating environment for his players - the England head coach's principal philosophies of 'Teamwork, Respect, Enjoyment, Discipline, Sportsmanship' have been imprinted on a ceiling wood panel - will be blanked out.

England will return to their traditional changing room for the pool-defining matches against Wales and Australia, who have chosen to be housed in the away changing room even though they won "home" advantage in the coin toss.

England will now use the away changing room for their final World Cup warm-up match against Ireland at Twickenham tomorrow.

England have attracted criticism from supporters for wearing a variety of away kits during the autumn test series as part of their commercial deal with kit manufacturers.

Away jerseys have included anthracite grey, purple and black. Lancaster has since over-ridden that policy by insisting that England should always wear white wherepossible when they are the home team.

Wales will also wear their away kit by choice against Fiji for their match on October 1, and South Africa will also be in a change kit for the match against Scotland on October 3.

The process of allocation of changing room and team kit for each fixture was determined by a coin toss at the team managers' meeting last November.

Meanwhile, England Rugby 2015, the company organising the tournament, says it will not change its ban on babies attending matches without their own tickets.

ER 2015 admitted yesterday it had received inquiries from parents asking it was possible to bring babies with them to matches.

An ER 2015 spokesman said: "For safety reasons, every human being in a venue needs a ticket so venue capacities are not exceeded."