Steve Borthwick turns England attention to Six Nations

Steve Borthwick has made increasing depth in certain positions his priority having begun planning for the Six Nations even before the World Cup bronze medals had been presented to his England players.

After falling to a late penalty in their 16-15 semi-final defeat by South Africa six days earlier, England dug deep to edge Argentina 26-23 in front of a hostile crowd at the Stade de France on Friday.

It was a sign of the team's growing resilience that they were able to climb off the canvas to deal with motivated opponents playing to restore reputations battered by their capitulation to New Zealand.

Borthwick now has a solid platform off which to build for the Six Nations and the most pressing duty post-World Cup is to compile his review of the tournament before discussing his finding with his coaching staff in a fortnight’s time.

England’s head coach has indicated that part of the review will focus on the lack of options in some areas of the team – primarily front row and inside centre.

"I’ve already started looking forward to the Six Nations. The planning is in the early stages and already started in my mind," Borthwick said.

"Naturally at the end of World Cups there are always some players that decide their time as a current England player will come to an end, but the age profile of the squad is strong.

"If you look at the semi-finals last week we had seven players who were 25 or under – more than any other team in the semi-finals.

"And there are a number of exciting young players that didn’t make the 33-man squad but who were part of the preparations over the summer.

"We know that the distribution positionally of those players isn’t necessarily even. We know there are some areas where we’re a bit thinner than others.

"I need to