Lawrence Dallaglio says he is certain there will be no scars from his side’s heavy Pool A defeat to the Springboks when England meets them again in the final at the Stade de France on Saturday night.

"South Africa deserve our respect having beaten us convincingly," he said.

"We were second-best in most areas of the game that night. But our scrummaging and work at the breakdown has gone up since then. International rugby is about getting the upper hand in scrummaging, the breakdown and the line-out and South Africa are strong in all those areas.

"We arrived at the World Cup not competing as hard as we needed to in those areas. We had to sharpen up our act.

"Our performances subsequently have been at a different level from that game. We've played a lot smarter. To beat France in their own country was a huge victory for us."

Dallaglio has been used mainly off the bench at the World Cup, admitting to some frustration but says he has grown to understand the importance of the job.

"You have to have that ability to raise the level. When you come on the pitch with 15 minutes to go and it's a one-point game that's a pretty critical part of the game. How teams use their bench is very important," he says.

“The response we have had since losing to South Africa has been magnificent and the semi-final shows that we can lose twice to a side, as we did to France in August, but when it matters can produce the performance which matters."

"We're all very excited. I've been lucky enough to play in a final already. You have got to seize the opportunity.

"It took us a bit of time to realise we had actually arrived at this World Cup. But we have responded to the pressure. Given the last England team's performance in the World Cup we didn't want to be remembered as the team who went home too early.