Tony Smith remains cagey about the chances of his England team winning the Gillette Four Nations, bearing in mind last year’s underachievement in the World Cup in Australia.

Smith admits that England do not possess the back line pace and power encompassed by such talents as Billy Slater, Jarryd Hayne and Greg Inglis for Australia, but insists that he and his players will be judged by their overall peformances. “If those are good enough to win the tournament, great,” he said. “If not, so be it. We will just do our very best.”

As for Friday’s opening fixture against France in Doncaster, Smith said at yesterday’s tournament launch: “You need to get off to a good start. It’s an important match for us. We’re going to put out the strongest team we can and, hopefully, build some combinations. We don’t have a lot of time to prepare for any of these games. It’s full on straight away.”

A nine-strong contingent from Leeds Rhinos and St Helens, who were rested for Saturday’s 48-12 warm-up win against Wales, are available to Smith, who will today summon a replacement from his training squad after an injury forced out an unnamed senior player from the competition. Sam Burgess, the loose forward, has been cleared of any damage after a knock to his knee and will play against France.

England encounter Australia in their second match, a week on Saturday, and Jamie Peacock, the captain, echoed his coach’s sentiments about wanting “rain, even sleet and snow, to slow them down”.

There is little danger of Smith creating any hype — “it’s up to you media guys to build up all that” — after expectations were so ruthlessly dashed in Australia a year ago. Nor will England underestimate France, as they did Papua New Guinea,whom they beat only narrowly in the opening World Cup game.

Bobbie Goulding, the France coach, has had to turn to James Wynne, 33, at scrum half after the withdrawals of Maxime Grésèque and Casey McGuire. Wynne had been discarded after last year’s miserable World Cup campaign and he is joined in the squad by his team-mate at Lézignan, Nicolas Piquemal, as replacement on the wing for the injured Cyril Stacul.

Australia, the odds-on favourite to win the final at Elland Road on November 14, meet New Zealand in Saturday’s rerun of the 2008 World Cup final, which the Kiwis famously won, at the Twickenham Stoop.

“We knew the bookmakers would make us favourites and it’s being able to play up to those expectations,” Tim Sheens, the Kangaroos coach, said. “[But] the players have been reminded that, in these conditions, the English are no pushovers.”