As one of Europe's top three ranked sides, England received a bye through to this stage of the competition and now need to see their way through this group in order to take their place at the Finals in Luxembourg next spring.

The Three Lions have an excellent record in this competition in recent years, making the semi-finals of the tournament in four out of the previous five seasons but they will have their work cut out to get past some highly-rated sides.

Once again Peacock is up against Italy, the side that, as hosts, knocked England out of the group stage of the Finals last season. The Italians also beat England in the Pepsi Tournament in September and as such will be the main rivals for the one qualifying position available.

Russia and Bulgaria will also be tough opponents as they impressed in going through to this second stage of qualifying.

Russia won their First Qualifying Round group, beating Armenia and Israel but only managing a draw away to Azerbaijan whilst the Bulgarians lost only to group winners Belgium in making it through to this stage.

Speaking at the draw in Cyprus, Peacock told TheFA.com: "It is not going to be easy to qualify from this group, we know that. Obviously I've come up against Italy a few times in recent years, with mixed results, but I'm hoping that with home advantage we can qualify.

"At this level the most important thing is the development of the players but when it comes to important qualifying matches, the result does become important.

"We all want to qualify to give the players the experience of going to the finals in Luxembourg in the summer and hopefully going a long way."

England face Turkey at Notts County FC on 13 December and Peacock knows that that match will be important as England look ahead to the three matches in the spring.

He said: "Well the Turkey match is the first stage in our preparations for the qualifiers and hopefully from now until those matches we will continue to move in the right direction."

The matches in England's UEFA European U17 Championship qualifying group take place in England between 28 March and 01 April 2006.