England are serious about Wales Test - Dan Cole

Leicester Tigers prop Dan Cole says England are upbeat about the Test against Wales at Twickenham on Sunday despite reports of the fixture not attracting enough interest.

The last time the two teams met was during the Six Nations encounter in March which England went on to win 25-21 at Twickenham while Wales stunned Stuart Lancaster's men in the 2015 World Cup winning by 28-25 in September at the same venue.

England will not have their star players from Saracens and Exeter as both the teams will be locking horns against each other in the Premiership final on Saturday while Wales have injury concerns with skipper Sam Warburton already ruled out of the game with a shoulder injury.

The fixture has also replaced the traditional non-cap international against the Barbarians and will be used to compensate the Aviva Premiership clubs for the disruption caused during the World Cup.

Following the game, England will be heading to Australia for a three-Test tour while Wales will travel to New Zealand to face the All Blacks. Despite, concern of increasing workloads, Cole said the players are keen to take on their oldest rival.

"It's Test match. Ideally I'd be playing in the Premiership final, but I'm not. It's not a warm-up game, it's a Test match," the Leicester prop said.

"For me it's part of the Australia tour, a four-Test block. It's good being in camp because (head coach) Eddie Jones has put a real spring into the English step."

England forward coach Steve Borthwick had earlier echoed Cole's sentiments and believes England are favourites to win the Sunday's clash despite missing the services of stars like Billy Vunipola, Maro Itoje and Jack Nowell.

"From our perspective this is a Test match. It feels like a huge and exciting Test match," the forwards coach said.

"At this point we've sold 78,000 tickets so it's going to be a sell out or very close to a sell out.

"The supporters are excited about it and it's a brilliant opportunity to be playing this game in May in what should be good game.

"We've prepared the best we can and we want to win as many matches as we can."

"I played in a few games at Twickenham that were pre-World Cup games and things like that. They were fantastic opportunities."

England are likely to start with Jack Clifford at number eight while the choice at inside centre is likely to be between Ollie Devoto and Luther Burrell.