History gives England cause for hope

Much unlike Cardiff, Dublin or Edinburgh, there is no fearing the All Blacks rugby jersey in these parts.

The All Blacks might be hot favourites to add England to their Grand Slam scalp list on Sunday morning (NZ time), but recent history gives the home side a far better shout of outshining their Lions teammates' efforts of the past fortnight.

Combine Wales, Ireland and Scotland's record against the All Blacks and it reads just three wins from 64 matches -- all by Wales and the last of those way back in 1953.

England meanwhile have won two of their past four matches against the All Blacks in an overall record of six wins and a draw from 27 matches stretching back 100 years.

The All Blacks' biggest winning streak against England is just six matches, between 1954 and 1973, as the men in black have struggled to assert the dominance they have, over the other home nations.

This century the teams have met four times with the honours even.

Last year an England side still with a World Cup hangover toured New Zealand and were soundly beaten 36-3 in Dunedin and 36-12 in Auckland.

In tomorrow's starting 15s there are six All Blacks and five English from last year's Auckland test in the run-on sides -- Mils Muliaina, Tana Umaga, Daniel Carter, Chris Jack, Carl Hayman and Keven Mealamu for the All Blacks and Josh Lewsey, Mike Tindall, Ben Cohen, Charlie Hodgson and Steve Borthwick for England.

"I take it back to when I was there in 2004 and we got hammered twice. God help us if the All Blacks are better," Hodgson said yesterday.

England gave some ominous signals pre-World Cup with back to back wins over New Zealand under Sir Clive Woodward in 2002 and 2003.

In Wellington in 2002, Jonny Wilkinson's boot and a mighty forward effort inspired by Martin Johnson and Lawrence Dallaglio saw them home 15-13.

A year previous, the All Blacks' last visit to Twickenham, a late Cohen tackle on Ben Blair snuffed out a late surge by the visitors to give England a 31-28 win.

Indeed the All Blacks' last three visits to Twickenham have seen a loss, a 30-16 win at the 1999 World Cup, and a 26-26 draw in 1997.

"We've lost there the last time we played, only just won in the World Cup in 1999 so there's a lot of challenges about playing there," All Blacks assistant coach Wayne Smith said.

- NZPA