Argentina head coach Michael Cheika dismisses England's poor form ahead of Rugby World Cup opening clash and insists his side will face 'quality players'

As the clock ticked into Sunday morning, Michael Cheika sat in a press conference room deep inside the bowels of the Estadio Civitas Metropolitano and put on a quite brilliant poker face.

‘I’m not going to pretend I don’t know there hasn’t been a lot going on,’ said the Argentina head coach, when asked by Mail Sport for his views on England’s chaotic World Cup build-up.

‘What I do know is England’s team is full of quality players. I’m sure we’re going to see those quality players when it comes to the game in Marseille.’

Cheika is right. England do have quality players. But under head coach Steve Borthwick, they are lurching into the World Cup on the back of awful warm-up displays, embarrassing defeats, and mindless suspensions. Argentina, by contrast, look an impressive collective force.

There can now be no doubt it is the Pumas and not England who will be favourites when they meet a week on Saturday on the World Cup’s opening weekend.

After impressively answering questions in broken Spanish following his team’s final preparation game for France, it was clear Cheika much prefers his team to be in the underdog position.

But the paucity of England’s recent displays — which culminated with a first defeat by Fiji at Twickenham last Saturday —means that can simply no longer be the case.

‘I feel really good about our preparation,’ said former Australia boss Cheika.

‘We’ve been low key. We’ve had no distractions. We’ve handled any type of adversity that’s come our way pretty well. We’ve been working and training hard. There is still a bit to go.

‘We’re not exactly where we need to be right now. There’s still a bit more building to go to get into the tournament but we’ve got that time now before the England game. I’m really happy.’

So Cheika should be. He rested key men Pablo Matera, Julian Montoya, Santiago Carreras and Emiliano Boffelli for the 62-3 hammering of Spain in Madrid — played at the home of football side Atletico and attracted 20,000 fans. It was Argentina’s final run-out before England.

Spain would have been at the World Cup too, but were disqualified after being found to have fielded an ineligible player in the qualification process.

While the mediocrity of the Spanish side must be noted, it is clear Cheika’s Pumas are red-hot behind the scrum.

Their back-line is hugely dangerous. Comparing their expansive, attractive style of rugby -—which includes the regular use of multiple dummy runners — to England’s turgid kick-fest is like trying to find similarities between chalk and cheese. Argentina have pace to burn behind the scrum.

Newcastle’s Mateo Carreras and Boffelli will cause England all sorts of problems.

Carreras came off with cramp in the nine-try hammering of Spain but will be fine to face England.

He had earlier scored the third try, one which was a fine example of what Argentina can do in attack. They scythed through Spain like a hot knife through butter. England, beware.

‘I read a lot of people saying our tournament group is one of the easier ones. I don’t agree,’ said Cheika. ‘At the end of the day there is only really one game of England’s I’m interested in and that’s the one we play against them. No one is playing for points right now. We’re all just warming up and getting ourselves ready. We’ll be playing for points next time and everything will be different.’

While England scramble around for any sort of attacking structure, Argentina are ready to repeat their 30-29 win at Twickenham last November. They have power as well as pace too.

Facing defending world champions South Africa, New Zealand and Australia in the Rugby Championship this summer saw Argentina quickly get up to speed.

They were too good for Eddie Jones’ Wallabies in Sydney and worried the Springboks and All Blacks.

Cheika has finalised his World Cup preparations with a gruelling training camp in Portugal.

The only negatives are serious injuries to prop Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro and flanker Santiago Grondona.

‘What happened in the last few minutes with Santi makes us very sad,’ former Leicester and now Newcastle centre Matias Moroni said after the hammering of Spain ‘We’re obviously pleased with the result but it’s mixed emotions.’

Still, Argentina are far ahead of England in terms of preparation.

‘All the fundamentals of our game are very good,’ Cheika said.

‘We’re pretty good at concentrating just on the noise that’s inside our camp and making ourselves better. We’ve got to make sure we’re ready to do our absolute best for England.’