Matches with All Blacks will provide telling barometer for England

Twickenham hosts a heavyweight climax to the QBE Internationals at the weekend when the sport’s first and third best teams collide in a contest bursting with significance.

New Zealand are intent on avenging their record 38-21 defeat last autumn – their only loss in 33 matches – and a result they blame on the virus they claim swept through the camp just days before the game.

For England the stage offers the chance to demonstrate they are a legitimate threat to the All Blacks’ world crown, as their sequence of nine wins in 10 matches suggests.

Lancaster insists his faith in England’s development is shared by his players. “New Zealand are a team apart, but if we want to be genuine World Cup contenders we’ve got to have the belief that we can win these games,” he said.

“There is the pressure and expectation of delivering against the best side in the world.

“To back ourselves to win a World Cup in England we have to have confidence to play sides like New Zealand.

“We are playing them four times over the next six months. That will gives us a good barometer to see where we are.

“When you play the best team in the world you are in for a huge physical, mental and technical examination.

“They have gone to Johannesburg, Sydney and France and won. They are used to it.

“But we have won our last six games at home – we’re a young side with a growing confidence within it.

“We will still have a pretty young, inexperienced team come Saturday, but we will be hugely motivated by the greatest challenge in rugby.

“Last year, even though we’d lost two games when we played New Zealand we still had the strong self-belief that we could beat them.

“Retaining your self-belief is the most important thing and sometimes, after losing a couple of games, it starts to waiver, but it never did at that point.

“Mentally, we are in the same place we were last year.

“We had that inner confidence last year and we’ve got the same inner confidence this time.

“But we still recognise that we’ve got to put in a level of performance that is above and beyond our wins against Australia and Argentina so far this autumn.”

England will have to make do without prop Mako Vunipola who has been ruled out of the series 
finale with a knee injury.

Vunipola missed last Saturday’s 31-12 victory over Argentina and the concluding match of the autumn has come too early for his return.

Joe Marler, his replacement against the Pumas, was concussed at Twickenham, but could be ready in time to face the All Blacks.

Alex Corbisiero will start against New Zealand with Marler supplying cover on the bench if he recovers.