here are two ways of looking at England’s starting selection against Italy on Saturday. The first is to note the renewed physical intent, the souped-up pack and the ominous smoke signals from the visitors’ perspective. The second is to bemoan the glaring lack of faith shown in young squad members for whom this fixture was a perfect chance to impress. A cold week for everyone has become even chillier for some. In the end Eddie Jones must have felt the poverty of last week’s effort against Scotland left him no option. If he said it once, he said it a dozen times: England intend to get back on the front foot and reassert their former reputation for squashing all in their path. In prioritising the need for short-term solace after his side’s Calcutta Cup debacle, however, Jones has done little to enhance the squad’s longer-term outlook. Because if there was ever a week to let loose Ben Earl, Max Malins, Paolo Odogwu or Harry Randall from the outset and rekindle a little excitement in a dispirited viewing public this was it. And how on earth must poor Ollie Lawrence feel, having been dropped from the 23 entirely after not receiving a single pass for the first 63 minutes of the Scotland game? Tough love does not begin to cover it. As the prince of English centres, Jeremy Guscott tweeted: “Very miffed that Ollie Lawrence left out. Seemed like the perfect game to pass the ball to him more than once.” Enlightened management? It feels more a case of shutting the stable door after the horse, wearing a tartan noseband, has long bolted. While there is obviously an element of trying to restore battered confidence before England head to Cardiff in round three, Jones’s conservatism is a missed opportunity. Italy have just conceded 50 points at home to France and have never beaten England home or away. This, surely, was the moment to give Lawrence a proper go, to see if Odogwu and Randall could lift the second-half tempo and invite Earl to lord it over the Azzurri? Jones, instead, has reverted to type and gone back to basics. Normally the “strongest available team” mantra would be fine but, notwithstanding the welcome return of Mako Vunipola and Kyle Sinckler from injury and suspension, a glimpse of managerial insecurity is now surfacing. The head coach, in the end, simply could not bring himself to relegate his form-free skipper to the bench or hand the captaincy to Maro Itoje with the unfortunate Lawrence keeping his place. Jettisoning the young Worcester centre and Newcastle’s Mark Wilson from the matchday 23, with Farrell quietly shifted to 12 and George Ford and Courtney Lawes recalled at fly-half and blindside respectively, at least underlines the reality that something had to change. “We want to attack the game and we want to do it from the off,” stressed Farrell. In that regard the demotion of Jamie George to the bench and a first Six Nations start for Exeter’s Luke Cowan-Dickie at hooker is plainly significant. To use the verb ‘dropped’ nowadays risks a managerial finger-wagging but Cowan-Dickie, after just three starts in 27 Tests, knows the difference between starting and finishing better than anyone. A broader question also still hangs in the air: should England be reviewing the balance of their game as well as the names on the team-sheet? Jones is forever looking for solutions – “It’s a bit like being a mad chemist, you try to find a bit of everything” – but he still argues that quicker ball and a more positive mindset will resolve most of England’s problems. “We’ve had a loss and the team have been criticised from the north pole to the south pole – and probably in between. But are we frustrated? No. All of a sudden – and I’ve coached teams like this before – things click and it happens. Sometimes you don’t know what the catalyst is, sometimes you do. One thing I do know is that if you keep working hard enough at it – and with enough strategic nous – you get to where you want to be.” If any coach can appreciate the team’s current situation, he reckons, it is probably Jürgen Klopp. “It’s been interesting to me watching Liverpool over the last six to eight weeks. At one stage everyone was taking about how fantastic their front three was. Then they couldn’t score goals for a period and everyone’s saying how bad they are. Sometimes players don’t get the opportunities but they’ve got to stick at it.” Italy, either way, still have one staunch ally at Twickenham in Conor O’Shea, the Rugby Football Union’s director of performance rugby, who believes they must remain a part of the championship. “They earned their right to get into the Six Nations,” said O’Shea, Italy’s coach between 2016 and 2019. “We have a responsibility to grow the game not contract it.”