Grewcock: We need to take our chances

Danny Grewcock has pressed home the need for England to capitalise on every scoring opportunity when they target an unlikely victory against Tri-Nations champions New Zealand.

The All Blacks secured a hard-fought 23-19 win at Twickenham a year ago. The most abiding memory of that match was provided by New Zealand's temporary reduction to 13 men when they had two players sin-binned - and England's subsequent failure to make their numerical advantage count.

"We have to learn the lesson from last year where we lost the game when New Zealand had a couple of guys in the sin-bin and we still didn't capitalise," he said. "The big thing for us is that if we get these opportunities, then we have to make sure we get the points."

He added: "There are not too many weaknesses in this New Zealand team, and we are obviously looking at the videos trying to find any small areas we can exploit."

Grewcock will be joined by five Leicester forwards in an England pack that must dominate their opposite numbers to have any chance of tearing up world rugby's form book.

England are reeling from five successive defeats - their worst results sequence since the early 1970s - which has piled pressure on head coach Andy Robinson going into an autumn series of Tests against New Zealand, Argentina and South Africa (twice).

But England attack coach Brian Ashton insists there is cause for optimism ahead of an encounter the All Blacks are widely expected to win comfortably.

Ashton said: "All the players are very positive, and they have the belief which is essential when you are up against as good a side as New Zealand.

"I was encouraged by the number of line breaks we made on the summer tour in the first Test against Australia, but we must capitalise on them more, as and when they come on Sunday."