Steve Borthwick be warned, Italy come to Twickenham a lot stronger proposition than previous years

The Azzurri have never beaten England in 23 attempts since swelling the Five Nations to Six in the year 2000.

How Steve Borthwick, who captained England in this fixture from 2008 to 2010, would appreciate another stroll at Twickenham on Sunday.

But last weekend’s opening fixtures of this year’s tournament would suggest England are in for anything but.

England, under new management in Borthwick and defence coach Kevin Sinfield, bore all the hallmarks of a team with a hell of a lot of work to do in World Cup year as they lost 29-23 to Scotland for the third successive Calcutta Cup match.

Italy were also beaten, but only by five points by the defending champions and favourites for the Six Nations, France.

They also beat Wales in Cardiff in the Six Nations last year, and defeated Australia in Rome in the autumn.

Under New Zealander Kieran Crowley, Italy have added a bit of guile to what has always been a willingness to compete.

“We gained confidence by pushing France close,” said Crowley ahead of the Azzurri’s latest appointment in London.

"And the other thing we got from it was we weren’t accurate enough.

“We had the realisation that if we were accurate, we could have had that game.

“Quite often in the past the Italians have accepted the fact that they get beat by these top teams, but the good thing last Sunday was that wasn’t there.

“There was a different feeling about it and that’s a real growth thing for me.”

Wing Edoardo Padovani and prop Marco Riccioni will start at Twickenham in the two changes from the France game.

Crowley knows England are a team in transition and that both rival forces have roughly seven games left to build momentum, cohesion and a gameplan for the autumn’s World Cup.

Crowley and his team might be further along on that journey – something that will be evident at times at headquarters on Sunday – but he is not downplaying what work Borthwick will have been able to do in the three weeks he has had with his England squad.

“I think they will be a lot more direct and unified,” said former New Zealand back Crowley after making two changes to the side that narrowly lost their championship opener to France in Rome.

“When a new coach comes in it takes a little bit of time. But they’ve had three weeks now, so I expect that defence will be a lot more solid.

“They’ll come at us direct and try to exert themselves on us from a physical presence point of view.

“So we have to beat that and attempt to be accurate in what we do and put the pressure back on them.”

Borthwick has responded to the Scotland defeat by splitting up the playmaking combination of Marcus Smith and Owen Farrell and revamping his midfield.

Farrell moves from inside-centre to outside-half with Smith demoted to the bench, while Ollie Lawrence and Henry Slade fill the respective 12 and 13 jerseys.

Crowley’s response was: “It doesn’t matter to us that Farrell is playing 10 and Smith is on the bench.

“Farrell will play a more percentage game, I would think and they’ll use Smith later in the game to open it up.

“But we just concentrate on ourselves and we want to give a good account of ourselves.”

Borthwick, whether consciously or not, took aim at his predecessor Eddie Jones when evaluating the problem he has inherited as England’s head coach.

In typical Jones fashion, the wily Australian now back in charge of his native countryman, messaged this response via a podcast on the eve of the second round of Six Nations matches.

“Well he’s probably right and that’s part of the problem,” Jones said in a podcast in response to Borthwick’s claim that England ‘weren’t good at anything’.

“We were trying to morph a team that had had a very good set-piece and very good kicking game.

“The way that the game is played at the moment, that will win you games but it’s probably not good enough to be World Cup champions.

“And so expanding the attack sometimes takes away from your strengths and they’re going through that difficult period now where they’re trying to get that balance right in their game.

“But Steve will fix it. There’s no doubt he’ll fix it.

"And keep blaming me. That’s all right, I’ve got a pretty strong back and pretty strong shoulders to absorb that.”

The history of England versus Italy fixtures suggests Borthwick won’t need to dig too deep into the bag of explanations come 5pm on Sunday, that he and Sinfield will be able to bask for the first time in the sound of ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ echoing around Twickenham.

Not that he will be complacent, for there have been better times to play Italy.