England won 24-7 in Sydney last November, with all their points coming from the currently-injured Jonny Wilkinson, and only another pressure performance like that will be good enough to deny France the Grand Slam, believes Dallaglio.

I am sure the French will want to put right a few things which occurred that day and it is our job to make sure they dont have the opportunity to do that,'' he said.

You have only got to look at their penalty count this season to realise that no-one has put them under significant pressure.

Their back row has not given away the penalties they have possibly had to in the past and as a result they have been able to play fairly free-flowing and confident rugby.

The challenge for us is not to allow them to do that and to put them on the back foot and make them work very hard for everything they get, he said.

England, who need to win by eight points to win the title and hope Ireland do not hammer Scotland by more than 50, have lost forward stalwarts Martin Johnson, Neil Back and Jason Leonard, who have all retired from international rugby since the World Cup triumph.

France, by contrast, have lost only retired scrum-half and captain Fabien Galthie from the semi-final side but Dallaglio does not see his replacement Dimitri Yachvili as a weakness.

He has not played as long as Galthie but he is playing very well for club and country behind a very dominant pack, he added.

It is the strongest pack they have had for quite some time so that is a key area. In the semi-final we didnt score a try but we managed to put them under enough pressure and with 15 or 20 minutes to go there was no way back for them.

The forwards know we are going to have to play for 80 minutes and really put the French pack under pressure, said Dallaglio, who sees that approach as the route to rattling talented young French fly-half Frederic Michalak, just as they did in Sydney.

Michalak fell apart to such an extent that he was substituted but Dallaglio said: He has been a great player for France in this competition so far this season.

He has come back very well from what must have been a very difficult experience for him and he is really pulling the strings quite nicely behind a very dominant pack.

One of our duties is to create dominance up front and ask the questions and put people under pressure to see how they perform.

Thus far France have not been put under that sort of pressure and you need to ask those questions to win a Test match, particularly away from home. That is the challenge for us and they see their challenge as very similar to that.