MARTIN Johnson expects England captain Lewis Moody to be fit for the opening Investec International against New Zealand at Twickenham on November 6.

Moody initially feared he would lose the sight in his left eye after damaging the socket in Bath’s Aviva Premiership defeat to Gloucester on October 1.

The damage was later diagnosed as severe bruising but the anticipated four-week recovery period left Moody’s hopes of leading England against the All Blacks in the balance.

But Johnson, the England team manager, revealed last night that Moody could be ready to play for Bath against his old club Leicester this weekend.

Moody is also likely to be released from England’s pre-autumn training camp to play against Harlequins on October 31 to ensure he is in top condition to tackle the top team in world rugby.

“Lewis is pretty good. I don’t know if he will play this week, it’s touch and go – but he will possibly play the week after. We anticipate him being fit for rugby (in time for the New Zealand game),” said Johnson.

Moody left Leicester for Bath in the summer after 14 seasons at Welford Road and he is anxious to be involved at the weekend.

“Hopefully I will be fit as I will be very frustrated if I miss that one,” Moody said.

Johnson stopped short of confirming Moody would retain the captaincy if fit – but it would be a shock if he did not.

England have progressed well since Moody took over the captaincy from Steve Borthwick at the end of last season’s Six Nations championship.

Johnson’s men were narrowly beaten in Paris by Grand Slam champions France, despite being the better side on the day, and they then bounced back from a disappointing defeat to Australia in Perth to level the series with a 21-20 victory in Sydney.

Johnson and Moody are the only England captains to have led their country to a Test victory over the Wallabies on Australian soil.

Chris Ashton, Courtney Lawes, Dan Cole and Ben Youngs all starred at the Olympic Stadium that night - four players who have broken into the England team in the last 12 months.

“What is coming together more than ever is the team thing,” said Johnson.

“They have been through some tough losses – a twopoint defeat to the Grand Slam champions, and Perth was disappointing because we didn’t play as well as we can for the whole game.

“The Sydney win came out of those times. We will have bumps on the road but that strength of spirit is coming.

“We don’t want to have to have a bad performance to spark a good one. We need consistency “We have been through some tough times and that is part of the road you travel and we will be stronger for it.

“We will need to be tough again because there will be defeats between now and the World Cup unless it goes brilliantly well. We need to keep reminding ourselves we can get confidence from good performances and if we do that the results should follow.

“We want to be very competitive now but you have an eye on World Cups too and we have seen in the last year or so the transtition.

‘‘This autumn we play the number one ranked team in the world in New Zealand.

You have to play these guys to improve.

‘‘You saw the improvement game-on-game in Australia.

You have to play the best in the world if you want to challenge.

The team is going in the right direction.’’ Johnson is confident that England’s France-based players – James Haskell, Tom Palmer and Jonny Wilkinson – will all be available to take part in the full pre-autumn training camp.