LONDON -- Ellis Genge says England "can't wait" to face the All Blacks and is predicting a "battle of attrition" after his side extended their winning run to nine matches in a row with their 38-18 victory over Fiji at Twickenham on Saturday.
England ran in six tries against Fiji in a tough Test, as the bench helped the team keep momentum as they kept up their winning run. Having defeated Australia 25-7 last week, they backed it up with a hard-fought win over Fiji where they led by just a point at half time.
Luke Cowan-Dickie, Imannuel Feyi-Waboso, Genge, Jamie George, Henry Arundell and Maro Itoje scored their six tries. "It was a tough physical game against a team packed with pace, power and skill," England head coach Steve Borthwick said.
"You saw that as soon as we got any space, they could score and make line breaks. The players did well, managing it, understanding it was going to be tight then finding ability to accelerate and find opportunities at the end."
Genge, who captained the team with Itoje on the bench, said Fiji are "a team of mavericks and have lightning bolts everywhere. Sometimes we get misled by their ranking but their players are amazing. I thought we did well to keep them within that score, and we spoke about finishing well."
Borthwick is optimistic Tom Roebuck will be fit for next week, and is also hoping Freddie Steward will be fit. He's waiting on the injury report from the Fiji match with Tommy Freeman and Feyi-Waboso coming in for some rough treatment, but is optimistic on both counts.
Up next are the All Blacks, a team England haven't beaten at Twickenham since 2012. "To be honest, there's always been belief," Genge said. "We went through a bit of a tough period casting my mind back a year or so. The walls close in a little bit from the outside but the belief has always been there.
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"Internally, you plan to win games and it doesn't always go that way. It can be the toss of a coin sometimes.
"We're over the moon to have won nine in a row but it gets very tough next week against New Zealand who are one of the best sides in the world. We look forward to that. Can't wait, I love playing against the best in the world.
"It will be a battle of attrition. In years gone by they've been known for chucking the ball about but they've got some big physical lumps in there now so we'll relish that."