England take on the French in what is expected to be a titanic World Cup quarter-final tussle in Auckland.

And we are off!

Time for the anthems.

France: 15-Maxime Medard, 14-Vincent Clerc, 13-Aurelien Rougerie, 12-Maxime Mermoz, 11-Alexis Palisson, 10-Morgan Parra, 9-Dimitri Yachvili, 8-Imanol Harinordoquy, 7-Julien Bonnaire, 6-Thierry Dusautoir (c), 5-Lionel Nallet, 4-Pascal Pape, 3-Nicolas Mas, 2-William Servat, 1-Jean-Baptiste Poux. /// Replacements: 16-Dimitri Szarzewski, 17-Fabien Barcella, 18-Julien Pierre, 19-Louis Picamoles, 20-Francois Trinh-Duc, 21-David Marty, 22-Cedric Heymans. /// Coach: Marc Lievremont.

England: 15-Ben Foden, 14-Chris Ashton, 13-Manu Tuilagi, 12-Toby Flood, 11-Mark Cueto, 10-Jonny Wilkinson, 9-Ben Youngs, 8-Nick Easter, 7-Lewis Moody (c), 6-Tom Croft, 5-Tom Palmer, 4-Louis Deacon, 3-Dan Cole, 2-Steve Thompson, 1-Matt Stevens. /// Replacements: 16-Dylan Hartley, 17-Alex Corbisiero, 18-Courtney Lawes, 19-Simon Shaw, 20-James Haskell, 21-Richard Wigglesworth, 22-Matt Banahan. /// Coach: Martin Johnson.

Tonight's referee: is Steve Walsh (Australia).

Conditions are much better in Auckland than they were in Wellington earlier on.

France have much to prove after losing to Tonga in their final pool game and both teams have spoken about the importance of getting off to a good start.

England, the 2003 champions, have knocked the French out in the semi-finals for the last two tournaments but are expecting anything but an easy ride from a team of whom the cliche about wounded animals being most dangerous could have been written.

Few are expecting much flowing rugby with redemption on the line for both teams after off-field activities overshadowed their pool games.