The gamble England simply had to take – Andy Goode

Making wholesale changes is the right call but there’s no hiding the gamble that comes with that in what is now both a must-win and a no-win game for England.

Italy are now a good international rugby team but when you’ve never lost to a team before there are going to be no plaudits handed out for even a 10-point away win for Steve Borthwick, yet it has become a game that he and his team simply have to win.

The changes are so sweeping that you almost wonder whether someone at the RFU has had a word in his ear to reassure him that his job is safe regardless of the results in Rome and Paris over the next two weekends.

Normally a risk-averse coach, Borthwick has made 12 changes – nine personnel switches and three positional shifts – to his starting XV and after the manner of the defeats to Scotland and Ireland, it’s hard to argue with any of them.

It’s the most changes England have ever made to a line-up between Six Nations matches, which tells you everything you need to know, and they now face a different sort of mental pressure on top of the sizeable challenge of facing an Italy side that will smell blood.

The fact that there isn’t a single player in the same position in the backline might feel a bit disproportionate, given just as many of the issues have come up front but hopefully that means they will all come in unburdened by past failures and play with freedom.

Fin Smith is clearly key to that and he is one who never deserved to lose his place to begin with but others such as Cadan Murley, Tom Roebuck and Elliot Daly have a point to prove and it’s hugely exciting to see Seb Atkinson given his opportunity.

The Gloucester man has the size and skillset to be a success at the top level and has had to bide his time after performing so well on the tour to Argentina last summer, not as long as another member of the backline though.

It’s incredible that Ben Spencer is starting a Six Nations game for the first time ever at the age of 33. It is long overdue for a man who has starred in the club game for so long and has one of the best passes I’ve ever seen.

You could argue there might have been even more changes in the pack and Maro Itoje might be slightly fortunate that Ollie Chessum has made way rather than him, given their respective form, but the extra negative headlines that come with dropping your captain would’ve been particularly unwelcome.

Alex Coles started seven of the 12 Tests in the recent winning run before being reduced to a bit part player for the two recent defeats so he is another who shouldn’t be carrying too much baggage.

It might not be the most important factor in the manner of the back-to-back losses England have suffered but I do also wonder whether the new central contracts are having a slightly negative effect.

Clearly, everyone wants to pull on an England jersey and win when doing so but maybe players have become a bit too comfortable because we haven’t seen the levels of desire and determination that you’d expect and there’ll be a few fresher faces desperate to get hold of one of those contracts.

There are enough leaders remaining in the team, from Itoje to others with bucket loads of caps such as Jamie George, Ellis Genge, Tom Curry and Ben Earl, who has been one of the better performers in this tournament and will hopefully have a better day on the occasion of his 50^th cap.

Those players need to show they are capable of grabbing the game by the scruff of its neck, changing the game plan on the hoof and leaving a mark in a way that none of them have really done in this Six Nations.

The Azzurri are missing Ange Capuozzo but are otherwise fully loaded and in Tommaso Menoncello and Juan Ignacio Brex they have a centre partnership that’s up there with the best in the world.

Monty Ioane and Louis Lynagh are top international wingers and Paolo Garbisi may have fallen down the pecking order at Toulon but knows how to get the best out of this backline.

I am surprised to see his brother starting alongside him at scrum half given how well Alessandro Fusco has been playing but he is behind a pack that will feel they can get the better of England on the evidence they’ve seen in recent weeks.

The front row can mix it with anyone, the Cannone brothers and Andrea Zambonin give them the grunt and work rate and Manuel Zuliani and Michele Lamaro will be looking forward to having a real go at the breakdown after England’s struggles against Ireland.

Nobody wants to be part of the first England team ever to lose to Italy and that will have been spoken about in camp but the players, aided by the likes of Lee Blackett and Kevin Sinfield, need to embrace that pressure and turn it from a negative into a positive.

The mood is bound to be anything but buoyant at present but the wholesale changes should lead to a change in the narrative from doom and gloom to an opportunity to start afresh.

Everyone will be expecting a reaction and an England victory but there’s a very different feel around this clash compared to all of their previous 32 meetings with Italy, the tournament may have gone but it’s a no-win game that they simply have to win.