Dawson

In his latest BBC Sport column, England World Cup winner Matt Dawson reflects on Steve Borthwick’s side’s emphatic 78-15 thrashing of Japan and looks ahead to the match against New Zealand next weekend.

I would love to see the England players absolutely bombarded with the favourites tag before their meeting with New Zealand next week.

Perhaps even over-egg it a little bit – I want to see how this side handles it.

At the end of the day, beating New Zealand or South Africa will likely be a requirement if you want to win a Rugby World Cup.

Are England really favourites? Yes, I genuinely believe they are.

While victories over Australia and Japan have been encouraging, it was Wales’ epic win over the All Blacks on Saturday that has given me real faith that this England side is good enough to compete at the highest level.

The key question is whether they can play as they have done over the last two weeks while carrying the favourites tag.

England are playing a better style of rugby than New Zealand. I thought the All Blacks’ attack, particularly in the second half in Cardiff, was incredibly one-dimensional.

That is nothing for England to be afraid of as their own attack has been very slick this campaign.

New Zealand aren’t going to fix those issues in a week, and England should be capable of soaking up that style of attack defensively.

Of course, the All Blacks were missing some frontline players, including Cam Roigard, Damian McKenzie, Will Jordan and Jordie Barrett.

However, what I saw during the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series was the Springboks beginning to work out that style of play after losing the first Test.

They went on to win the next three Tests in a row.