Both teams go into the meeting at Twickenham a week on Sunday on the back of impressive wins over Ireland and France respectively. Wales got their RBS 6 Nations title challenge back on track with a comfortable defeat 27-6 defeat of Les Bleus, a win which sets up the pivotal clash with England.
Wales’ last two meetings with England have gone well, Warren Gatland’s men triumphant on both occasions. Two tries from Alex Cuthbert guided Wales to a 30-3 victory at the Millennium Stadium last March to secure a second consecutive title while in 2012, Scott Williams’ late effort earned Triple Crown glory in south west London.
“England will be a step up again from France, we’ve been building every week,” said Perpignan lock Charteris.
“The boys will be the first to admit we didn’t perform against Ireland in the pack but we’ve addressed a lot of those issues and there are still a lot of things to work on.
“England will pose problems for us, particularly at the line out and at the scrum as well. They’ve looked pretty good from where I’m standing.”
Charteris started alongside late call-up Jake Ball in the win over France and with England winning 100 per cent of their own line-outs against Ireland, he knows Wales will have a battle on their hands against the likes of Courtney Lawes and Joe Launchbury.
“England look like they are a fitter team than France, they’ve looked very impressive,” he added.
“I know they lost the first game to France, but they should have won that game and will be disappointed they didn’t. And against Ireland, they looked very good too.
“Both Lawes and Launchbury are really good players. They played a bit last year then got injured which derailed them a bit. But they’ve stepped up, are playing really, really well and are part of a very good pack.
“England are our closest team so there’s always rivalry there. Particularly in the last few years as they’ve been big games in terms of deciding the outcome of the Championship. This one isn’t an out and out decider but it will certainly go a long way to determining each team’s fortunes.”
Going into the meeting with England, this year’s Championship is intriguingly set up with Wales, as well as Ireland, England and France, all level on four points with three games played.
Charteris added: “It was important after the Ireland game to address the points difference – 21 points against France was a very good result, it’s put us back in there.
“We’re still behind Ireland and England on that side of things but we’re in the hunt for the Championship which is obviously our goal.
“A few of the boys will go back and play with the Welsh regions and we’ll get plenty of preparation done here.
“We have realistic ambitions to retain the title and England is going to be a big game.”
