To misquote Roald Dahl, they are the three BFRs (big friendly rivals), and with little more than two weeks until the first Ashes Test, England insist the field is still clear for one of them to grab the third seamer's position in Brisbane.

Steven Finn, Chris Tremlett and Boyd Rankin each improved after a slow start in the opening tour fixture in Perth, but with Stuart Broad due to make his first appearance in the second warm-up game against Australia A in Hobart this week, and Jimmy Anderson also likely to want another bowl before taking a break in the last week before the Test, it may be that only one of the beanpoles will be given another chance to make an impression in Tasmania.

David Saker, England's bowling coach who makes no secret of his soft spot for tall fast bowlers – especially in his native Australia – is relishing the competition for places between the three.

"It's a really healthy thing when you have three people training for one spot," said Saker, effectively confirming that Tim Bresnan has no chance of proving his recovery from back problems in time to play in Brisbane by describing the possibility of him bowling in the last of England's warm-up games in Sydney the week before the Test as "high risk".

"You get them training hard, get them playing hard, they're under pressure all the time – that's a good thing from where we sit and where the selectors sit."

He conceded they had not responded well to that pressure on the first day of the tour in Perth. "When you play your first warm-up game there's some nerves there," Saker added. "You all know you're playing for one spot so there's a bit of apprehension."

Rankin, the Irish farmer who made such a positive impression in the one-day series against Australia last summer, was the most obviously affected, over-pitching regularly in his first spell. But by the end of a long first innings he was looking the most likely of the three, and he then took two good wickets in four overs when given the new ball second time around.

Tremlett was rarely better than steady, and occasionally innocuous. But the acting captain Matt Prior singled him out for generating reverse swing in the second innings, and Saker hinted that the impact he made in the last three Tests of England's last Ashes tour could count in his favour.

"Chris can swing the ball quite well and his record in 2010-11 was outstanding," said the bowling coach. "Past form does come into selection but ideally we want them to be playing really well before we pick them and I'm confident we'll have two or three really good candidates for that spot come Brisbane.

"There's nothing that one player did [in Perth] that made him jump ahead of anybody, and there was nothing someone did that would take him out of consideration."

Finn also played in three Tests on the last tour three winters ago, in his case the first three before he was displaced by Bresnan in Melbourne despite being England's leading wicket-taker in the series to that point. That was largely because he had leaked runs too freely, which made his first-innings figures in Perth – one for 123 in 23 overs – worrying, both for Finn and for England.

There was no immediate improvement second time round after he replaced Rankin. But in the last session of the match, something seemed to click. England were clearly determined to give Finn a long bowl – he delivered a 10-over spell either side of the tea break – and he had long conversations with both Prior and Alastair Cook, who made a beeline for him when he came on to the field as a highly-qualified 12th man.

"There were some really good signs in his last spell," said Saker. "He does need a lot of bowling because he is tuning his body into a new action. I'm sure if he keeps playing and we put enough overs into him, he'll put himself in contention. We know how good he is and how good he has been, so we're going to spend a lot of time with him and make sure we get him back to where we can."

With similar uncertainty over who will bat at No6 – and possibly even a doubt over Cook's opening partner, given the possibility that Joe Root could drop back into the middle order to hand an unexpected chance to Michael Carberry – Saker conceded that England's planning is much more fluid than three years ago, when their preferred Test team was chosen for each of the first two warm-up games, and were required merely to rubber-stamp their selection.

"We haven't really talked through these three games as far as structure because we didn't have it in our head at the start," he said. "Last time I think we had a pretty clear idea about our attack and batting line-up down here. So there's just a little bit of different preparation – we'll play it by ear. But again that's a healthy thing. Fighting for spots is always good."