Argentina have helped give Georgia heart, says Haskell

England escaped from their opening match with a 13-9 victory over Argentina, courtesy of a try from substitute scrum-half Ben Youngs.

Romania and Japan have already come close to overturning the odds at the World Cup and Haskell knows Georgia will be itching to claim England’s scalp.

“Anything can happen in this World Cup and Georgia are another side who would love to take England out,” said the England flanker. “Everyone’s going to be heartened by this performance by Argentina. With Georgia it’s going to be another set of very, very big men.

“We have got to be accurate, get our defence on the money and really impose ourselves and just stick with it.

“For 50 minutes it’s going to be a very, very tight game. It’s those last 30 minutes when hopefully the better team breaks away.

“I hope that’s us next week, but you can never tell. We’ve just got to make sure we make some changes this week.”

Haskell believes the gap is closing between the so-called minnows and the traditional super-powers of world rugby.

“Professionalism has seeped in everywhere now. The playing field is level,” he said.

Argentina’s powerful pack controlled the breakdown battle and England bled penalties, which led to Dan Cole being sin-binned shortly before half-time.

“We were under the squeeze in that first half, whether it was scrum-time, whether it was at the breakdown, just general play. They were coming at us in waves,” said forwards coach John Wells

“We were under the pump. If you’re on defence and in positions where you shouldn’t be the referee is going to come down harshly on you.

“When the lads look at it, they’ll say one or two (of the penalties) were pretty dull.”

The Pumas led 9-3 early in the second half but they could have been out of sight had Felipe Contepomi and Martin Rodriguez not missed a total of six penalty kicks.

Jonny Wilkinson inexplicably failed with five on the trot under the Otago Stadium roof, four of which came after the interval as England desperately sought a way back into the game.

“It’s really unusual for Jonny to have an off day,” said assistant coach Mike Ford.

“If I see him kick in training or in the next game, I’ll put my mortgage on him he won’t miss. That’s how much we all trust him.”