Dawn of the 6 Nations, pt. 3

With the 6 Nations quite literally around the corner, I wanted to start Route One by talking about each country and some of the possible talking points going into this tournament. I'll place the countries into different posts and I'll save my thoughts on the Round 1 matches for separate posts, and hopefully this doesn't take terribly long. They are arranged in absolutely random order:

England: Certainly one of the favourites to take the title, though really, outside of Scotland and Italy, any of the teams in this competition could make a reasonable claim for that statement. Stuart Lancaster has taken the opportunity in this tournament to introduce even more new blood into the England team, with Henry Thomas, Luther Burrell, Jack Nowell, Anthony Watson and Jonny May set to play some serious minutes. Burrell's is an inspiring story (here), but he is in this team to make a difference and give England the sort of impact runner they lack in the centres with Manu Tuilagi still on the sidelines. The same goes for the other aforementioned rookies, all of whom have earned this ascension into England XV reckoning based on fantastic club form.