LONDON – The England rugby coach Stuart Lancaster has named his strongest side for Saturday’s Rugby World Cup opener against Fiji.

Though England face crunch Pool A games against Wales and Australia later in the tournament, Lancaster says they cannot afford a slip up against an in-form Fiji team.

He’s picked the same side that started the home victory over Ireland in their final warm-up match, with the only change to the 23 coming on the bench where hooker Rob Webber is preferred to Jamie George.

George Ford has been given the nod to control proceedings at first five, ahead of Owen Farrell, while halfback Ben Youngs wins his 50th cap.

Rugby league convert Sam Burgess is poised to earn his third test cap, off the bench, with the Vunipola brothers Mako and Billy also among the substitutes.

Fiji coach John McKee intends to play his strongest team also.

He says all of his players are fit and available but his selections won’t be influenced by who England put on the park.

“The coaches pretty much have in mind especially what]our starting fifteen will be and we’re just having to make a decision around how we structure our bench.”

“But for us it’s about our team and about how we play so whoever England select won’t affect our selection for this game.”

Pool A has been widely referred to as the ‘pool of death’ but John McKee says they’re looking at it as a pool of opportunity and a chance to take some major scalps and progress to the play-offs.

Pool A is set to stage a rivetting battle between the host nation England, current Rugby Championship champion; Australia, Six Nations enforcer Wales, Pacific Rugby Championship title holder Fiji and underdog Uruguay.

Former Fiji assistant coach Gregg Mumm is quoted saying that when Fiji faces the giants in the ‘pool of death’, “sacrifice, spirit and song will unify them”.

Fiji Rugby Union CEO Radrodro Tabualevu has labelled it the ‘pool of opportunity’ while skipper Akapusi Qera believes it’s a “brilliant pool” and believes his team “will survive”.

For the unprepared, the noise of a hostile Twickenham crowd coan be nerve-racking, but Fiji will be ready.

Coach John McKee has revealed that the team prepared for Friday’s RWC opener by playing recorded Twickenham crowd noise during training sessions.

“We had a little bit of a strategy earlier in the campaign in Fiji. We had a PA system playing crowd noise and the sounds from Twickenham. That was part of our preparation,” he told a media conference at the team’s hotel in Weybridge on Tuesday.

He said the sound was taken from footage of matches at Twickenham, and included the crowd belting out the traditional anthem, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.

As well as helping the players prepare mentally, there was a practical side to the crowd noise. Vice-captain and hooker Sunia Koto acknowledged that it can be hard for players to communicate above the sound of 80,000 people chanting.

“It’s quite tough when playing in a big stadium when the hype is there and everybody’s singing, it’s quite hard to get the calls over,” he said.

But Koto said the atmosphere was all part of what the players are expecting and that the Fiji team was excited about the prospect of the match.

“It’s truly an honour to be playing in the World Cup, but the opportunity to play in the opening match against the hosts is truly a great honour. It will be remembered in 10 years’ time, we’ll be telling stories in the village about the day we played the opening match in the World Cup.”