England centre Mike Tindall believes his side can beat New Zealand if they concentrate on playing to the best of their abilities.
England centre only has victories in mind
England veteran Mike Tindall believes his side can beat New Zealand if they concentrate on playing to the best of their own abilities.
The experienced centre will partner Shontayne Hape in the midfield as the Investec Internationals commence when the All Blacks visit Twickenham on Saturday.
New Zealand enter the contest as the top-ranked team in the world after winning all six of their matches in the Tri-Nations earlier in the year.
Revamped interpretations of the laws at the breakdown have given them the freedom to move the ball quickly and attack relentlessly.
But Tindall says England cannot afford to get drawn into worrying about how to combat the All Blacks and must instead focus on playing their own game.
Tough
"They are going to be tough, but from our point of view, we can't worry too much about them," the Gloucester man told
skysports.com.
"We've to make sure that we've got everything we're trying to do in order and in place so we can go out there and execute that against them. And if we perform to the best of our abilities then we can win the game."
Tindall was a World Cup winner with England in 2003, playing in the historic 20-17 final victory over Australia at Telstra Stadium in Sydney.
And although he admits that the current squad do not appear on track to repeat that achievement, the 32-year-old hopes the autumn internationals with provide a platform for England to announce themselves as challengers before next year's World Cup.
"I think it's hard to compare that team, which was together for six years before we had the success in 2003 but I think one of the simple truths is that we are a little bit further behind where that team was," he said.
Great chance
"This Investec Series gives us a great chance to move along the track and it would be great if we could come away with some wins and become a major threat. And that's what we believe that we can be."
He added: "With a good performance in the Investec challenges we can roll on to the Six Nations with even higher confidence and even better belief and then it gains momentum from there.
"You only take one game at a time but each game you feed off and (use to) grow as a group and grow as a team and hopefully get better and better."
RFU chief executive John Steele has set a target of two wins out of the four matches with the All Blacks, Australia, Samoa and South Africa, but Tindall believes England should be aiming higher than that.
"I'd be disappointed with two wins," he stated when asked about the target.
"I think that we're England, we've got to expect to win games. Yes they're going to be (tough) games but we have to go out there and expect to win them."
