England fly-half George Ford is happy to be the standard-bearer for diminutive players in a sport now populated by giants.

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Ford’s stature will be placed into sharp perspective when he is targeted by Fiji in Friday’s World Cup opener at Twickenham, with 20-stones wing Nemani Nadolo set to be unleashed down his channel.

It will be a test of Ford’s nerve and technique if he is forced to stop a player almost seven stones heavier and eight inches taller. And, as practise for the David v Goliath mismatch, he has been tackling Billy Vunipola and Sam Burgess in training.

Evidence to support the old adage of a ‘game for all sizes’ may be increasingly hard to find amid the muscle-bound brutes that dominate professional rugby in 2015, but Ford insists guile can still master brawn.

“Obviously I’m smaller than most lads on the pitch, but I don’t feel threatened by it,” said Ford. “There are other areas of game apart from being big and powerful. There is the mental side of it, being smarter, cleverer, quicker and having a feel for the sport.

“I do get asked the question about my size a lot – little lads come up to me and say ‘you’re not very big’. And they are usually bigger than me! I tell them not to worry about it and make sure that they can kick the ball.”

Ford’s fly-half channel may be viewed as an area to exploit by Fiji, but it is his Bath team-mate Anthony Watson who must stare down the Islanders’ juggernaut for the whole 80 minutes.

Four tries in three matches has elevated Watson to the status of England’s main strike weapon, but the 21-year-old knows it is his defence that will be tested when the eyes of the rugby world turn their gaze to Twickenham.

“It’s a good opportunity,” Watson said. “I’ve got tremendous respect for him as a player.

“Nadolo is a world-class winger. I’m approaching it like I would playing against George North. I’ll do my homework on him, try to pick out areas where I can potentially impose my game on him and look at areas where he’s particularly strong.

“You’re not going to play against wingers the same size as you every weekend. You’ve got to be able to adapt to the size and strengths and weaknesses of your opposition winger.

“Across the board in their back line, Fiji have game breakers. Defensively all of us are going to have to be on the money. They’re all pretty much big blokes and they’ve all got good footwork. It’s going to be a good challenge for us.”

Ford admits that after months of build-up and a punishing 10-week summer training camp, he is pleased that the World Cup is finally about to begin.

“We’ve been waiting for this a long time – it’s been a long pre-season,” he said. “It’s been nice to have a couple of warm-up 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 and we can’t wait to get out there.”

That’s a sentiment echoed by scrum-half Ben Youngs who says England, who will wear red for the game, are “ready to go”.

“It’s soon now and we’ve been champing at the bit for a while,” the Leicester scrum-half said. “From the moment we got back from the New Zealand tour last summer we knew this was coming. It’s been a long wait for a lot of guys, so we can’t wait to get out there on Friday.

“There’s a real edge and intensity about us; not nervousness, just excitement.”