George Ford is confident his and England's defence will be able to keep Fiji's powerful backs at bay come the opening match of the Rugby World Cup on Friday evening.

If Fiji's giant winger Nemani Nadolo finds himself in midfield and charging at Ford, he will have an advantage of 45kgs and 20cms over the young England fly-half.

Despite the physical advantage Nadolo has over Ford, he is confident he will be able to halt anything Fiji throw at him come Friday evening.

"Obviously I am smaller than most lads on the pitch but I don't feel threatened by it," Ford said. "There are other areas of the game other than being big and powerful. There is the mental side of it, being bit smarter, bit cleverer, being a bit quicker."

George Ford breaks away from Owen Farrell during England training© David Rogers/Getty Images

England have prepared for the Test by pitting powerful ball carriers Sam Burgess and Billy Vunipola up against the XV that will start against Fiji and Ford says it will be a team effort to halt the Islanders' dangerous backs.

"Whoever we play against, we do the same thing -- to make the 10 make as many tackles as possible, to take other parts of his game away," Ford said. "I concentrate on defence every week. It's important we defend together at the weekend.

"There'll be plenty of two-man tackles, stopping the offload channels, because that's what they're brilliant at offloads. Individually and as a team, we do plenty of work to make sure our technique and one-on-ones are brilliant."

Ford conceded Nadolo is a winger who can "cause a lot of damage" but also highlighted the ability of their own back three in Anthony Watson, Jonny May and Mike Brown.

England will have done their analysis on the Fijian threat but there is still an element of the unknown about what they will face on Friday.

"They are a bit unpredictable and that's what makes them so dangerous. Attack-wise, they've got many threats across the park which we're going to have to be careful with. Defensively we've got to be on it, otherwise they're going to hurt us.

"Them defending, they are massively big physical men who are going to want to put some big shots in. We've got to be decisive in the way we play, composed."

Ford sees Friday night's match as "just another game" but there is an element of relief that the opener has finally come around after months of build up and hype.

"We've been waiting for this a long time, it's been a long preseason. It's been nice to have a couple of games to get back into match mode. To finally get the World Cup kicked off -- it's a bit of a relief. We've been waiting for it, we are ready for it, we can't wait to get out there."