WIGAN’S New Zealand international Thomas Leuluai is tipping England to beat Australia in next Saturday’s Gillette Four Nations final at Elland Road.

The Warriors hooker or half-back believes England will be unstoppable if they can stage a repeat of their performance that earned them a 28-6 victory over the Kiwis in Saturday’s winner-takes-all clash in Hull.

“I’m definitely going for England,” he said. “If they play like that and complete the sets like they did, they definitely have a chance of winning.

“They’ve got a great forward pack who dominated and, if they do that again, they’ve got a big chance.”

New Zealand, who beat Australia in the 2010 final, went into their final group game as favourites but, after having an early try by Kieran Foran disallowed for offside, were rarely in the match.

Trailing 14-0, they briefly threatened a fightback when winger Jason Nightingale touched down for the third successive match, with Benji Marshall’s touchline conversion cutting the deficit to just eight points, but England finished strongly to maintain their supremacy in these fixtures.

The Kiwis have now won just one of their last 12 internationals against England or Great Britain in the United Kingdom.

Leuluai added: “We weren’t at our best but you can’t take anything away from England. They were definitely the better team and deserved to win.

“They might have surprised some of the other boys but not me.

“I knew they could play.

“I knew their forwards were going to be hard to handle.

“They controlled a lot of the possession in the first half and took a lot of juice out of us.

“We couldn’t get field position. That’s credit to England.

“I thought they played really smart.”