England's coaches are certain Australia will not be soft touches during the scrummage battle in Saturday's World Cup quarter-final.

The reigning world champions head to Marseille today after booking their last-eight place with a 36-20 victory over Tonga.

Unbeaten Pool B winners Australia now await them, desperate to avenge the dramatic 2003 World Cup final defeat when Jonny Wilkinson's late drop-goal saw England land the Webb Ellis Trophy.

England, notably two years ago at Twickenham, have enjoyed a domination of Australia in the scrum, putting a huge onus on Saturday's likely front-row trio Andrew Sheridan, George Chuter and Phil Vickery.

But forwards coach John Wells and scrum specialist Graham Rowntree believe it would be a dangerous game to write off the Wallabies in that key contact area.

Wells said: ''There is no doubt their scrummage has taken a good turn.

''Before the tournament, people pinpointed it as a potential weakness, but their scrummage and driving play has come on immensely.''

Rowntree added: ''Australia are better in that area than when we played them in 2005, and I genuinely believe they are looking to scrummage.

''I have a lot of respect for Michael Foley (Australia forwards coach). He is one of the best front-row coaches in the world.

''The scrum is no longer just a restart for them. They are looking to take teams on.

''They looked to take Wales on in that area and I was disappointed in how Wales reacted. It became a penalty competition.''

England head coach Brian Ashton is likely to announce his starting line-up tomorrow.

Full-back Jason Robinson (hamstring) and flanker Tom Rees (thigh) should be available for selection after they were sidelined for the Tonga clash, but England look to have emerged from a punishing encounter without any major fitness scares.

Several of the squad spent yesterday's day off at Disneyland Paris before reconvening to begin the task of plotting Australia's downfall.

Wells said: ''Over the last two weeks there has been a lot of criticism and the players have had to handle that, but they have dug in and worked hard.

''The two wins over Samoa and Tonga have given us a lot of confidence, but we will have to continue to work hard to improve.

''We have been pilloried in the press, probably at times quite rightly, but we have come through two difficult games.''

''We have achieved our first objective, which was to get out of our group.

''While you are in it you can still win it, and I am confident that if we are on top of our game we can give a good account of ourselves. Our confidence is good. Yes, we still need to improve, we know that."

South Africa warmed up for their World Cup quarter-final with Fiji by running in nine tries against the United States in an entertaining Pool A clash in Montpellier.

Deadly winger Bryan Habana and centre Jaque Fourie touched down twice, with Schalk Burger, Francois Steyn, CJ van der Linde, Fourie du Preez and Juan Smith also going over.

Percy Montgomery added six conversions and a penalty in a 15-point haul as the Springboks rounded off their group campaign with a fourth straight win.

The Eagles, who return home winless and with the group's wooden spoon to boot, managed tries through Takudzwa Ngwenya and Chris Wyles.