Kiwi coach Hansen expects wounded England to 'batten down the hatches'

Now the way I see it: New Zealand assistant Steve Hansen gives his view

Hansen, however, believes the controversy will serve only to galvanise the team.

"Whenever you see teams or families under pressure, they always unite and become close," he said.

"That's what will happen with the English team. They will batten down the hatches and look after each other."

The All Blacks forward coach was unaware of the full nature of the allegation but felt the embattled England camp would now turn their full attention to Saturday's encounter.

"If you're under pressure, the key thing you've got to do is focus on the tasks that you want to go out and do," he added.

"They want to play a Test match on Saturday so the best thing they can do is focus on that and I'm sure they will be working hard at doing that.

"They will want to go home with a performance they can be proud of and hopefully for them they'll want a winning one. Hopefully for us it won't be."

Stretching a point: Steve Hansen with Kiwi Brad Thorn

Hansen was also wary that last week's defeat, coupled with the ongoing saga, would make England a far tougher prospect this time round.

"I think any team that gets beaten is going to be dangerous anyway," he said. "They've been beaten and now they've got this thing that's uniting them so they will be very dangerous, I think."

England caretaker boss Rob Andrew has made a host of changes to the backline following last weekend's defeat.

Fly-half Charlie Hodgson has been replaced by Toby Flood, Jamie Noon joins Mike Tindall at centre, Mathew Tait comes in for Mike Brown at full-back, Tom Varndell replaces David Strettle on the left wing and Danny Care replaces Richard Wigglesworth at scrum-half.

Hansen feels the selections indicate England may play a more expansive game.

"He's picked an interesting side from our point of view," he said.  "He's got a couple of big ball carriers in the middle, three backs that would prefer to run rather than kick and he's playing a guy that normally plays second five-eighth (inside centre) at first-five (fly-half) and he's a good tackler. He's closed a few of the doors I suppose."

Former Wales coach Hansen also claimed he was slightly bemused by the conservative nature of England's game, especially given the talent in the backline.

"I look at England rugby and how they play and how the environment probably
forces them to play at times and I look at the quality of some of their backs and wonder why they don't play more expansively," he said.

"Having lived up that way, the conditions at times make it more suitable to play that more physical game and it's just getting that balance.

"They certainly have some great players, great backs, it's just a matter of giving them the confidence to go out and perform."

Hansen pinpointed Topsy Ojo as one of the main threats the All Blacks would need to contain after he scored two debut tries.

"He scored a couple of tries from nothing last week. Rob (Andrew) was whinging
a bit about the fact we got two soft tries," Hansen said.

"I suggest they scored tries from absolutely nothing through the sheer brilliance of an individual.

"I don't know how close you looked at the intercept but not many people would have caught the ball, let alone had the gas to do what he did.

"His chase from the kick (for the second try) was straight out sheer pace so he has got to be dangerous."