England coach Tony Smith claims his backline has just as much firepower as Australia's star-studded Kangaroos ahead of Sunday night's World Cup clash.

Smith believes highly capped centres Keith Senior and Martin Gleeson have the experience to dominate the Australians and is confident with the variety his backline can offer in attack.

With Leeds halfback Danny McGuire coming off the bench, Smith is excited by the potential to mix things up at Telstra Dome Sunday night.

Leon Pryce and Rob Burrow will start in the halves for England but if things don't go according to plan their Smith can thrust McGuire into the action to ignite the Lions.

"I'm pleased with our backs .. I think we've got good speed, we've got good experience," Smith said.

"Keith Senior's been around for a while and he's a big strong powerful thing and Gleeson is as good as any centre footwork wise and slight of hand with his passes as well, (he's a good as) anyone in the world on his day.

"The Australians are very dangerous in the backs, but I'd like to think our boys are not bad as well."

Smith's decision to break up the Leeds tandem of Burrow and McGuire comes out of necessity to get the ball into the hands of Pryce as much as possible.

It's a situation similar to that at Melbourne with Greg Inglis playing at No.6 despite not being a natural five-eighth.

But it's Pryce's versatility as well as the ability of hooker James Roby to move around which could make the Lions a dangerous commodity when the Burrow-McGuire combination is eventually re-united.

"There's all sorts of combinations - it just opens up a whole lot of different options for us," Smith said of McGuire's presence on the bench.

"Leon can handle fullback if necessary or centre and he's played on the wing - by having Danny there it opens up a whole lot of possibilities with Leon as well."

Smith refused to rule out the prospect of veteran forward Adrian Morley starting the contest, the new England coach keen to keep Australian counterpart Ricky Stuart guessing as long as possible in regards to his line-up.

"We'll decide come game day like we did last week," Smith said.

"We hadn't decided which way we were going to go with (Gareth) Hock and Morley and it's a bit the same at the moment.

"It's a bit undecided there and a couple of other positions I'm not positive which ones' going to start - we'll see."

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