Borthwick names same starting XV for Wallabies clash
England coach Steve Borthwick has named a virtually unchanged team to face Australia, with just a positional switch in midfield and two changes to the replacements bench.
Henry Slade starts at inside centre, swapping places with Ollie Lawrence from Saturday's 24-22 defeat to New Zealand.
Ben Spencer, still seeking his first England win after seven games, will get his second start at scrum-half in Saturday's clash.
Borthwick has reverted to a traditional 5-3 forwards/backs split on the bench, bringing in prolific Northampton winger Ollie Sleightholme instead of flanker Ben Curry, and Luke Cowan-Dickie instead of Theo Dan as hooker cover for captain Jamie George.
It is the second week in a row that Borthwick has chosen to name his team two days ahead of schedule, with Australia set to name their team on Thursday.
Since losing to Australia at Twickenham in the 2015 World Cup pool stage, England have won 10 and lost one of their fixtures. The teams' last Twickenham meeting was a 32-15 England win in 2021.
Meanwhile, Borthwick has distanced his England set-up from the Eddie Jones regime, which has been damningly portrayed by Danny Care, as he revealed he has an open door policy and encourages collaboration from his players.
Care wrote in his autobiography that everybody was "bloody terrified" of "despot" Jones, the former Wallabies' mentor who was also England's head coach from 2015 to 2022.
When asked if he is challenged by his squad, Borthwick said: "There are plenty of times where we have ideas and we discuss them. It's almost on a daily basis.
"The best players are the best coaches and luckily we have some great, great minds in this group."
England team:
15 George Furbank (Northampton Saints, 12 caps), 14 Immanuel Feyi-Waboso (Exeter Chiefs, 7 caps), 13 Ollie Lawrence (Bath Rugby, 28 caps), 12 Henry Slade (Exeter Chiefs, 66 caps), 11 Tommy Freeman (Northampton Saints, 12 caps), 10 Marcus Smith (Harlequins, 36 caps), 9 Ben Spencer (Bath Rugby, 7 caps); 1 Ellis Genge (Bristol Bears, 63 caps), 2 Jamie George (Saracens, 94 caps, captain), 3 Will Stuart (Bath Rugby, 42 caps) 4 Maro Itoje (Saracens, 85 caps), 5 George Martin (Leicester Tigers, 16 caps), 6 Chandler Cunningham-South (Harlequins, 8 caps), 7 Tom Curry (Sale Sharks, 54 caps), 8 Ben Earl (Saracens, 34 caps).
Replacements: 16 Luke Cowan-Dickie (Sale Sharks, 41 caps), 17 Fin Baxter (Harlequins, 3 caps), 18 Dan Cole (Leicester Tigers, 116 caps), 19 Nick Isiekwe (Saracens, 12 caps), 20 Alex Dombrandt (Harlequins, 18 caps), 21 Harry Randall (Bristol Bears, 8 caps), 22 George Ford (Sale Sharks, 97 caps), 23 Ollie Sleightholme (Northampton Saints, 2 caps).
With PA
