There was a less positive prognosis on Marcus Smith, who travelled back to England for further investigations on his calf injury.
“He’ll go back to England today and have further investigations later this week,” Borthwick said. “He won’t be available next week. We’re not sure exactly when but we expect it to be a number of weeks. Hopefully he will play in the latter part of the Six Nations but it will be a number of weeks. We’ll know more next week.”
Even with the new faces, England’s matchday squad boasts 883 caps and Borthwick believes he has the right blend of youth and experience. After three successive Six Nations Championships in which they have won only two matches, Borthwick wants England to adopt a different mindset as they start their campaign at the Stadio Olimpico.
“England’s performance in the last Six Nations have not been the standards that any of us want,” Borthwick said. “It requires a different mindset and a different approach. This is clearly a different group to the World Cup group. There’s 20 new players and that’s brilliant for this team going forward.
“It’s a group of players that you need to hold back. A group of players that are so keen and desperate to get going into the Test match, it’s fantastic. For me it’s a group of players I believe in, a group of players I believe have got the mindset we want.
“What struck me in training was how often I have had to hold them back and get them off the training park and into recovery because they want to run hard, they want to keep going, they want to keep working on their game. That is a great example of the desire they have.
“I think this England team is going to play with an intensity and play with a fight within it, and a tactical application and a tactical alignment, that will find a way to win.”
England XV: F Steward; T Freeman, H Slade, F Dingwall, E Daly; G Ford, A Mitchell; J Marler, J George, W Stuart, M Itoje, O Chessum, E Roots, S Underhill, B Earl
Replacements: T Dan, E Genge, D Cole, A Coles, C Cunningham-South, D Care, F Smith, I Feyi-Waboso