Easter is expected to be a leading light for England at this year's Rugby World Cup © Getty Images

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England No.8 Nick Easter believes the Tri-Nations giants could be "overcooked" by the time they reach this year's Rugby World Cup.

The scheduling of this year's battle for southern hemisphere supremacy will see Australia, New Zealand and South Africa go head-to-head throughout July and August with the sides set to meet each other twice in an abbreviated format - reduced due to the World Cup.

And it is that intense workload, on the back of a gruelling Super Rugby season, that Easter believes may work against them. In contrast, England's leading players have been out of action since the end of the northern hemisphere season and will not step up their preparations until the start of the World Cup warm-up matches in August.

"This time the northern hemisphere teams might have a little bit of an advantage over the southern hemisphere teams in terms of the scheduling because we've had a break," Easter told Press Association Sport.

"We don't have any rugby match now until the first warm-up game in August, so we have a good window to train hard and get prepared properly. But in the southern hemisphere their Super 15 season is longer than usual and has gone on an extra month. Then they have the Tri-Nations.

"They might be a little over-cooked, while for us it's just like heading into a normal season. At our clubs we'd be doing pre-season at this time and start playing in September."

The All Blacks and Wallabies have also arranged fixtures against Fiji and Samoa respectively as curtain raisers to the Tri-Nations while England and their Six Nations rivals enjoy a rare June without tours to the southern hemisphere.

There have only been two been barren summers for Home Unions in terms of Tests in the southern hemisphere but they will all crank up their preparations in the month leading into the World Cup.

Only Ireland have a similar itinerary with five warm-up games and Easter suspects the contrasting schedules could make a difference. "I am surprised they're playing the Tri-Nations. Maybe they'll play weakened sides and rest their key players," said Easter.

"I thought they might play each other as warm up games like we do with other Six Nations teams, but with the same sort of warm-up schedule. I hope it leaves them tired."

Easter is pleased with the competition offered in England's pool, believing it will prove ideal preparation for the knockout-stages. The Six Nations champions open the tournament against Argentina on September 10 and also face Georgia, Romania and Scotland.

In 2007 Australia and New Zealand paid the price for their romp through the group stages by falling apart during pressure-cooker quarter-finals, with the Wallabies losing to England. Absolutely you want a challenging pool. You don't want it too tough obviously because you could end up giving everything just to get out of it," said Easter.

"You definitely want some tough games or matches where not everything goes according to plan so you have to work out different situations. In quarter and semi-finals things don't go according to plan and the opposition is as desperate as you to win it.

"If you haven't had that match practice or played under that pressure or intensity in previous matches, you can get caught on the hop. That's certainly what happened to New Zealand the last time around."