Saints star Lawes gets England start against Scotland

Both players have been involved in the past two Saints games, having recovered from ankle injuries.

And Lawes has done enough in the win against Harlequins and draw at Gloucester to get to nod from the off at Twickenham, replacing Saracens lock George Kruis.

Dylan Hartley and Luther Burrell also start, as they did in the first three games of the tournament, with Wood named among the replacements.

But Alex Corbisiero, Calum Clark and Stephen Myler will not feature and they are now available for Saints’ LV= Cup game at Saracens on Saturday.

“There’s always a lot of competition for places and having experienced players like Courtney, Tom and Geoff (Parling) available after playing well for their clubs in the last few weeks adds to our options,” said England boss Stuart Lancaster.

“It’s been an intense two weeks of training as everyone wants to be on that field on Saturday to put things right after Dublin and we have had to make some tough selection calls.

“Coming back to Twickenham will be huge for us and we are determined to put in a performance against a strong and motivated Scotland team.”

England team to face Scotland: Brown; Watson, Joseph, Burrell, Nowell; Ford, B Youngs; Marler, Hartley, Cole; Attwood, Lawes; Haskell, Robshaw, B Vunipola.

Replacements: T Youngs, M Vunipola, Brookes, Parling, Wood, Wigglesworth, Cipriani, Twelvetrees.