Easter to captain England

London - Manager Martin Johnson on Wednesday made four changes to his starting lineup in naming the side to take on Samoa in an international Test match at Twickenham on Saturday.

He also named Nick Easter of Harlequins as his captain taking over from Lewis Moody who was skipper for the thrilling 35-18 win over Australia last Saturday.

Leeds openside flanker Hendre Fourie gets his first Test start in place of Moody, who has been given a week's rest.

Matt Banahan, who won his previous five caps on the wing, has been preferred to Delon Armitage as Mike Tindall's outside centre replacement.

Blindside flanker James Haskell, who has not featured yet this autumn, and tight-head prop David Wilson will both start, with Tom Croft and Dan Cole moved to the bench for England's first meeting with Samoa since the 2007 Rugby World Cup.

Otherwise, Johnson has retained the core of the team that downed Australia at Twickenham a week after narrowly losing to New Zealand.

Easter has previously captained England in non-cap internationals against the Barbarians in 2008 and at the end of last season, but he has never led his country into a Test match.

Johnson said he had been delighted with the performance against Australia but warned that Samoa were dangerous opponents who could not be under-estimated.

"The good thing is that we played well in the last game and have done okay in the game before that (26-16 defeat by New Zealand)," he said.

"The team is doing well, but we want to keep the continuity and we've seen the rewards of that. We don't want to break it up too much.

"The performance (against Australia) didn't come out of the clouds, it was a build-up of what we've been doing for a while.

"We had a good day, we could have scored more tries and they could have scored more tries. But it's nice as a coach not to be talking about 'if onlys' after a game."

England:

Ben Foden (Northampton); Chris Ashton (Northampton), Matt Banahan (Bath), Shontayne Hape (Bath), Mark Cueto (Sale); Toby Flood (Leicester), Ben Youngs (Leicester); Nick Easter (Harlequins, capt), Hendre Fourie (Leeds), James Haskell (Stade Francais): Tom Palmer (Stade Francais), Courtney Lawes (Northhampton); David Wilson (Bath), Dylan Hartley (Northampton), Andrew Sheridan (Sale)

Replacements: Steve Thompson (Leeds), Dan Cole (Leicester), Dave Attwood (Gloucester), Tom Croft (Leicester), Danny Care (Harlequins), Charlie Hodgson (Sale), Delon Armitage (London Irish).