England make three changes for Australia game

Although much of Wales’ 23-13 Pool A victory over Fiji at the Millennium Stadium was not pretty, first-half tries by Gareth Davies and Scott Baldwin – plus 13 points from Dan Biggar – saw them home.

Wales are 1/7 to move a step closer to the quarter-finals with Fiji out at 22/5 for notch their maiden win of the tournament after defeats to England and Australia. But we can trust our bench to come on and make a difference which they did’. It would mean we make the quarter-finals so it’s hard not to (cheer for them) if we are being entirely selfish about our own destiny.

Joseph missed the 28-25 loss to Wales with a chest injury but has recovered sufficiently to play in the must-win encounter on Saturday evening.

“Given that short turnaround we had to dig really deep and I thought the players did well”.

His return sees Sam Burgess dropping to the replacements bench.

Number eight Ben Morgan and lock Joe Launchbury start up-front, benefiting from injuries to Billy Vunipola and Courtney Lawes, but once again the biggest talking point from Thursday’s team announcement rested on the midfield.

But Lancaster, whose key backs Jonathan Joseph and Ben Youngs have both passed fitness tests, predicts England will come out fighting.

Lancaster said: ‘Brownie was excellent.

LIKE most Englishmen I’m still trying to get over the disappointment of last weekend’s narrow defeat to Wales.

“The stakes are huge”.

Stuart Lancaster faced up to the “biggest game” of his career, insisting that whatever England’s fate he will take full responsibility.

Jonathan Joseph admits it is do-or-die time for England when they take on Australia at Twickenham on Saturday.

“The most positive thing for me as a coach was our problem-solving on the pitch”, McBryde said. “If you distract yourself with the what-ifs then you aren’t doing your job”.

He turned out a virtual reserve team for the following 65-3 Pool A hammering of Uruguay.

England, who have won four of the last five meetings between the two great sporting rivals, will nearly certainly need to win to avoid going out at the pool phase. Gatland’s side will be through with a game to spare if England lose at Twickenham on Saturday [4 October] but the New Zealander can not bring himself to support the Australian team such is the rivalry between the now southern hemisphere nations.

Hooper added that Cheika’s confidence in him and Pocock played a large part in them being so effective as a combination.

“We lost most of the hits in the scrum and ended up soaking up the hits, so this week we have to get our speed right going into the scrum”.