Dallaglio: best to come

Captain's call: Dallaglio says England can play better

Lawrence Dallaglio today warned Calcutta Cup opponents Scotland that the World-Cup winning England players could reach new levels of performance in the Six Nations championship.

Given that England defeated Italy 50-9 in Rome, an even better showing would mean serious problems for a Scotland team that lost 23-10 to Wales in Cardiff.

Dallaglio and the squad have now set up camp in Edinburgh and have a day off today to enjoy the sights of the city.

However, the match will be dominating their thoughts and England's captain said: 'There are areas where we need to get better following the win in Rome and we are improving all the time.

'We have work still to do to fine-tune a few areas and that is something we will be concentrating on tomorrow.

'We have a bounty on our heads as World Cup winners and it's increasing all the time and handling the pressure is a challenge we have to deal with. It's something we are looking forward to.

'The Scottish pack will provide us with a very big challenge and a lot of their players are familiar to us - many of them are or have played in the Zurich Premiership while we've competed against the others plenty of times before. We know what we're up against.'

Scotland's players have been attempting to take some of the heat off new coach Matt Williams, who watched his backs largely outplayed by the Welsh in Cardiff on Saturday.

Now he is up against the best team in the world and will be relying on men like flanker Jason White to produce something special at Murrayfield.

'This is a hard time for Matt Williams to be coming in after a World Cup but he is instilling belief in the guys,' said White. 'Matt hasn't had any games to prepare us. We've got to try to learn what Matt wants us to do.'

White gained the first of his 33 caps in the 2000 win over England and said: 'We're under no illusions about how difficult England will be but if we can stay close to them and keep the ball when we are in possession, who knows?

'The odds are against Scotland but anything is possible. There is always hope - we can win it.'

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