It's Rugby World Cup quarterfinal time, so it's time for teams to start getting serious.

Everyone knows deep down that you can lose a game in the pools and still go through. That seems to be the way Scotland approached their group, given the changes they made for their only defeat in Pool B against South Africa.

But now things are serious. It's knockout rugby, so the only goal becomes very short-term: win the game that's in front of you.

It is hard being favourites because almost everyone is behind the smaller side, and New Zealand and Australia in particular will feel the effect of that this weekend, against France and Scotland respectively.

The England side that I was part of in 2003 experienced exactly the same thing. Any 'neutral' spectators in Australia were supporting the other team, but to be honest, you thrive on it. When you play away, most of the fans are against you, so it's nothing new. I used to absolutely love hearing the crowd getting riled up. As a player, you want to be in a hostile environment. It sounds mad, but it's great. You hear and feel the excitement and the tension, and that's what you want as a player. Ultimately, the atmosphere is built by both boos and cheers, so it makes little difference.

We went into the World Cup in Australia as the favourites -- we were the best team in the world, and the majority of us were probably the best players in our positions in the world at that point -- so the pressure was on us, especially as no team had won the World Cup when they had gone in as favourites since probably New Zealand in 1987. We knew we'd be under that pressure, though, and the favourites this weekend will go into their games knowing that they are as well. They'll embrace that, though, and they know they'll have to be favourites at some point to win this World Cup. You can't win a World Cup being underdogs in every game.

Generally, you're favourites because you're playing well, too, so it's not like you're being put on an unfair pedestal. Our side in 2003 had experience - and Jonny Wilkinson. We went two scores down to Australia at Twickenham in an autumn Test in 2002, and we sat underneath the posts thinking: "S---". Martin Johnson, our captain, said a few words, the message being: "Let's regroup. This is going to be the making or breaking of us. This is what we're going to do. Every time we get into their half, Wilko is gonna drop a goal and we're going to keep the scoreboard ticking over." We crawled our way back into that game and we ended up winning, 32-31.

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That's the experience I'm talking about, knowing that you have the ability when you're favourites and everyone is getting on your back to pull out a victory. That's how you win -- silence the crowd, get some scores, do your basics well. You know when you're playing away from home the majority of the support is going to be against you, but it's nothing new to you.

Thinking about our three knockout games in 2003, we were losing in the first 20 minutes of the quarterfinal, the semifinal and the final. We went at least a try down every time, and all you can do is make sure you don't panic. "Don't worry about it, we've got another 60 minutes to put it right, and we've been doing it for years. We can win a game in 10 minutes, so just stay switched on and it'll come." Know your job, know your roles and it will eventually come together. That's what the world class teams do, and favourites or not, they will back themselves when the pressure gets cranked up this weekend.

The 2003 quarterfinal against Wales in Brisbane was the biggest scare, because we were trailing 10-3 at half-time. I remember the whole game so well, because I remember it burning my lungs. The humidity was a killer, and a lot of us hadn't played in the final game of the pool stage against Uruguay in Brisbane the week before. We didn't really have that game to get used to conditions, our training sessions were controlled because we were getting to the latter parts of the tournament, so we hadn't been killing ourselves.

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That game was tiring, and as soon as you get tired, fatigue sets in and mistakes happen. Individuals turned that game -- Jason Robinson's great break in particular, which set up Will Greenwood for a try that levelled the scores early in the second half -- and great teams have players who can do that.

The favourites for this weekend's quarterfinals will hope they've found the right balance between resting players and hiding them away from the thrust of competition too much, because that's what we did in 2003 and it nearly cost us. Our experience pulled us through, and there is no doubt that whichever teams win this weekend, they will be able to say the same thing. Whatever happens, I think we're in for four cracking games. It's just a shame England aren't there, but I don't want to start on that again...