Rugby World Cup: England expect fierce battle

England coach Martin Johnson has made four changes to the side that sent Scotland packing, notably introducing Toby Flood at second five-eighth alongside Jonny Wilkinson. Photo / Dean Purcell

It casts a long, dark shadow over recent All Black campaigns, but Martin Johnson was happy to dip into Rugby World Cup past to make his point yesterday.

Having named his England team to face France in their quarter-final at Eden Park tomorrow night, Johnson talked of the All Blacks' 1999 and 2007 defeat by the French to illustrate his point of the threat his players face.

"Look at their two wins against the All Blacks," he said of the semi and quarter-final defeats at Twickenham and Cardiff respectively.

"They were written off before and during the games. They had nothing to lose, went for it, and look what happened.

"You go out there in front of a big crowd, get the adrenalin flowing through you. They are very dangerous, no more so than when they have been written off."

Johnson also took his mind back to 2003, when England played France in a semifinal in Sydney.

"A lot of people in this room had written the England team off, said we weren't going to win, that France would do this and that," Johnson told a packed press conference yesterday.

Result: England 24 France 7. One win later and Johnson was lifting the Webb Ellis Cup.

"People have written this French team off for whatever reason," Johnson said.

"You don't know, until you're in the group, what's going on. The same with our group and what's happened to us in the last couple of weeks.

"It could be very powerful for them to come together and go 'right, we'll show everyone'."

Johnson has made four changes from the side which punted Scotland out of the cup last weekend.

The biggest involved midfield and No8, where Toby Flood replaces the injured Mike Tindall and Nick Easter squeezed past James Haskell.

Flood first. He will be at second five-eighths outside Jonny Wilkinson. His form has been good, while Tindall has barely trained this week with a leg injury.

Throw the two elements together and the answer was probably pretty straightforward, with due respect to the talents of alternatives like Shontayne Hape and Matt Banahan. Indeed Johnson denied picking Flood was a gamble.

"Toby's been playing very well. He will bring us something different than [the alternatives]. It's an exciting combination for us."

Flood gives England a second kicking option, out of hand and from the ground.

So who gets first dibs with the goalkicking tomorrow night, given Wilkinson's problems of late and Flood's decent 76.92 per cent success rate - or 10 from 13 - thus far in the tournament?

Johnson's bat could not have been straighter: "You'll see on Saturday."

Easter returns after getting over a back injury, Johnson conceding Haskell was stiff to miss the starting job but "Nick brings a lot of experience in that specialist position and a good degree of game control. It was one of the toughest calls."

Mark Cueto replaces the suspended Delon Armitage on the wing while Tom Palmer's industry got him in front of Courtney Lawes to partner Louis Deacon at lock.

England have an inkling of what lies ahead; their reserve bench is a 5-2 forwards-backs split, including their other two locks, Simon Shaw and Lawes.

"It's going to be that type of game, I think," Johnson said of the split. "We've got to start big, no holding ourselves back for anything."

England are determined not to spot the French a start, as they had against Scotland last weekend. There is only so much catching up any team can do.

Eden Park, 8.30pm tomorrow

Ref: Steve Walsh (Aust)

FRANCE
Maxime Medard
Vincent Clerc
Aurelien Rougerie
Maxime Mermoz
Alexis Palisson
Morgan Parra
Dimitri Yachvili
I. Harinordoquy
Julien Bonnaire
T. Dusautoir (c)
Lionel Nallet
Pascal Pape
Nicolas Mas
William Servat
JB Poux

ENGLAND
Ben Foden
Chris Ashton
Manu Tuilagi
Toby Flood
Mark Cueto
Jonny Wilkinson
Ben Youngs
Nick Easter
Lewis Moody (c)
Tom Croft
Tom Palmer
Louis Deacon
Dan Cole
Steve Thompson
Matt Stevens

France: Dimitri Szarzewski, Fabien Barcella, Julien Pierre, Louis Picamoles, Francois-Trinh-Duc, David Marty, Cedric Heymans

England: Dylan Hartley, Alex Corbisiero, Courtney Lawes, Simon Shaw, James Haskell, Richard Wigglesworth, Matt Banahan