Jonny Wilkinson Rates England Squad

World Cup winning fly-half Jonny Wilkinson thinks the current England squad could emulate the great side that won the 2003 tournemtn in Australia.

England will play three internationals in August as they prepare for this year's showpiece in New Zealand, which starts in September.

Wilkinson said players and their approach to the preparations remind him of previous England teams.

"There's some familiar parts of it and things which take me back a few years," he said, "but all the good bits to be honest, the kind of togetherness, the collective respect, the relationship between the guys, the energy, the momentum, all that sort of thing, that all brings back good memories.

"There are so many mentally tough guys here who remind me of the likes of 2007: like Martin Corry, Phil Vickery and Jason Robinson - these guys who've seen all that stuff and been through it and realised they were young once and taken their hits and taken their lessons.

"And in 2003, obviously Martin Johnson, Neil Back, Will Greenwood, These guys were in the same situtation - they spent careers getting to that moment, and I'm seeing it now," he added.

"The good thing is that this squad is there lot of young guys as well. I'm 32 years old - I can't believe it, when I did my first World Cup people like Jeremy Guscott were getting on for that.

"For my second World Cup it was Martin Johnson and now hopefully coming up to a fourth it's me in those shoes... I still see see myself as an 18 year old."