England coach Stuart Lancaster took the unusual step of confirming an unchanged match day squad for Saturday’s Six Nations match against Italy at Twickenham on Saturday.

Lancaster will name the starting team this morning and is expected to stick with the same 15 who began in Cardiff on Friday when England impressively beat Wales 21-16.

The coach had been forced into making several changes after a raft of injuries but the new men performed impressively, notably centre Jonathan Joseph, who scored a try to cap a great performance in his first Six Nations match.

“We’ll name the team on Thursday but we’ve gone for the same squad that played against Wales as we look to build consistent performances,” Lancaster said in a statement.

“There are many players pushing hard for selection and we are looking forward to watching their club games this weekend.”

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.