England's woes compounded by Six Nations-ending injury

Alex Mitchell has been ruled out of the remainder of England’s Guinness Six Nations campaign.

The Northampton Saints scrum-half limped off the field midway through the first half of England’s 42-21 loss to Ireland at Twickenham’s Allianz Stadium on Saturday, with Steve Borthwick confirming after the match that it was a “soft tissue” leg injury.

Borthwich has since confirmed that the 28-year-old has been ruled out of the remainder of the Championship with a hamstring injury, with England facing trips to Rome and Paris to play Italy and France in the final two rounds after the upcoming fallow weekend.

“Alex Mitchell left the field with a hamstring injury on Saturday and has subsequently been scanned and has seen the relevant specialists,” he told Sky Sports. “Unfortunately, he’s going to be out for a number of weeks, which means he won’t feature for us in the remainder of this Championship.”

When available, the British and Irish Lion has been a nailed-on starter for England under Borthwick at scrum-half, so this will be a bitter blow to a side that are desperately searching for a win following defeats to Scotland and Ireland.

Fixture

Six Nations

Italy

23 - 18

Full-time

England

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Already this Championship, Borthwick has used two back-ups for Mitchell on the bench, Ben Spencer and Jack van Poortvliet, so it is likely the pair will both feature against Italy.

Borthwick also provided an update on centre Ollie Lawrence, who made his first appearance of the Championship against Ireland after overcoming a knee injury. He has since seen a specialist for his knee, although it is unclear whether this is a new injury or a recurrence of the previous one.

He said: “Ollie Lawrence isn’t in the squad for these couple of days we’ve got here in this training week. He saw a specialist yesterday around his knee and had an injection. There will be a clearer picture with him later this week, but hopefully he’ll be back very, very soon.”

The England boss also confirmed that full-back George Furbank has returned to his club, Northampton Saints, to play this weekend against Saracens in the PREM Rugby Cup, which could potentially be to give him game time ahead of a return to the Test arena against Italy in round four.

He added: “Also, George Furbank is not with us, he’s with Northampton this week, so that he will play for this club side this weekend.  A number of players started the week with their clubs, training with us in the latter part of the week and will return to their clubs for game time this weekend.”