John McKee: England will face a tougher Australia

Fijian head coach John McKee believes England will face a vastly improved Australia side to the one they beat last November when the two side’s meet at Twickenham in next week's World Cup collision.

With a dominant and one-sided set-piece tilted firmly in English favour, England comfortably overpowered Australia to win 26-17 in last November’s Autumn Internationals.

But despite the Wallabies failing to match England’s bonus-point pace in a 28-13 victory over Fiji on Wednesday evening, McKee feels Australia have certainly stepped up since then and will be a formidable barrier to England's World Cup ambitions.

"I see two quite different styles of games and it will be very interesting,"

The fixture on October 3^rd will play a large part in deciding who will eventually progress out of this year’s Pool A with Wales also in the mix for one of the two qualifying spots on offer.

"England certainly had the wood on them last November and dominated that game, but from I what saw of the Wallabies against us [Fiji] they're a much-improved side than they were then."

With two losses already Fiji are almost certainly out of the World Cup already but they can take solace from proving difficult and worthy opponents for both England and Australia with the eventual scorelines in both fixtures not indicative of the resolute challenge Fiji posed to both sides throughout.

"We want to be competitive at the top level and we've just got to keep chipping away and working at it," McKee said.

"We want to get to the situation when we come up north to play England and Wales and we're on an equal footing and we don't know who's going to win the game.

"Our aim is that it's not like tier one versus tier two.

"These things don't happen overnight but I think we're heading in the right direction."

Fiji's third World Cup outing is against Wales in Cardiff on October 1 where they will be without wing Waisea Nayacalevu, who having suffered knee-ligament damage in the early moments of the Australia game, looks set to miss the remainder of the tournament.