this to me is the key thing.

If you listen to people talking about NZ you hear about the superhumans that have smashed everything put before them, and England have scraped through against poor opposition. Reality is that England had tougher games in the groups (Fiji are better than Samoa and France, Ireland and PNG are probably similar); and England had a tougher quarter final yet NZ only scored 1 try more.

Both have played France, 34-6 to 48-0, is hardly a seismic difference in scoreline (and if England hadn't put the cue on the rack in the 2nd half we would have won more easily).

We beat Fiji comfortably, Fiji beat Samoa comfortably, but Samoa pushed NZ hard in the 2nd half of that first game. If England's forwards get stuck in, like the Samoan forwards did, we have seen what happens, and they look distinctly beatable.

The only issue for me is that in every game we have had 20 really good minutes, then either put the cue on the rack or, as against Australia, been weakened by the interchanges available. If we start like we did against the Aussies, we will be able to maintain the momentum this time around.

I've just bought my tickets for the final, so we've got to win now.

Another reason England could win is to compare how each team fared in their most recent match against Australia. England narrowly losing 28-20 and NZ comfortably losing 32-12.