Lawrence Dallaglio is not underestimating the danger Wales pose to an England team desperate to bounce back from their shock RBS 6 Nations defeat by Ireland.

England captain Dallaglio knows from personal experience what a threat Steve Hansen's Welsh side can be and just how close they came to derailing the eventual world champions in the quarter-finals Down Under.

Wales, who led at half-time in Brisbane, outscored the eventual champions by three tries to one before succumbing 28-17 to the boot of Jonny Wilkinson.

"If you look at the results over the last couple of years, England are in credit against most nations. Not many sides have scored more than one try against England - but Wales scored three in the one game," Dallaglio warned.

"That goes to show that in that performance in Brisbane we were very sloppy and they have the ability and potential to expose anything that is below standard in our performance.

"They have got some incredibly exciting runners and huge, huge potential in their team. They exploited that in Brisbane and scored three very good tries - they probably scored enough tries to win - but fortunately our second-half performance was better and we did enough," said Dallaglio.

He is under no illusion that England fell well below their usual high standards as they succumbed 19-13 to the Irish two weeks ago and pinpointed just what went wrong.

"Too many unforced errors, too many penalties, not enough lineout ball, not dominating, not being physical enough, not making life difficult enough for them," said Dallaglio.

"Before the Ireland game we spoke all week about the need for certain things and we didn't get the actions that were necessary to back up those words."