'Borthwick played a blinder with bench selection'

It is never spoken about by Steve Borthwick or his players, but we are now two years out from the Rugby World Cup in Australia.

There will be a handful of players who play a lot of rugby over the next two years and still don't get picked, such is England's impressive strength and depth.

The starting selection in Saturday's 25-7 win over Australia was Borthwick giving a nod to the stars of the successful summer tour to Argentina.

You are talking about the top echelons of international team sport when you have benches like England's - which featured six British and Irish Lions tourists.

For a long, long time, England have not had a bench like that.

I cannot see Borthwick consistently going with that much power on the bench, because when you are playing against better sides, you need that experience, power, skill, and finesse from the start of the game.

After all that graft in the first 60 minutes, if you are Australia and you see a Lions front row of Ellis Genge, Luke Cowan-Dickie, and Will Stuart coming on, you are thinking, "oh, goodness".

You have also got the individual brilliance and capability of Henry Pollock - able to grab a ball one-handed and be in the right place at the right time to score a vital try.

It is a fantastic weapon to have, and it is now being deployed in such a strategic and successful manner.

Looking at this England squad - and we have been saying this for a while - there is just something a little bit different about the make-up, the talent, the willingness to be part of the extended squad, and the culture within it.

Everybody is invested, and everyone can see and enjoy the success England are having at the moment.

Hooker, number eight, scrum-half, fly-half, inside centre and full-back are often really core positions to be very successful at World Cups.

Consistency in those positions shows they are ready to go through to the World Cup - it will be interesting to see how Borthwick plays it this autumn.

I think the full-back and fly-half positions are still very much up for grabs and a little in the midfield, but Tommy Freeman has had a really good start to his Test career at 13.

Maybe having two or three fly-halves for different styles and different oppositions is the way forward. The same can be said for the back row.

Borthwick played a blinder with his selection against the Wallabies, who delivered as poor a performance as I have seen from them.

Something has clicked during this eight-game winning run, and it may be down to the senior leadership.

It could be the kind of things Maro Itoje, who was only named captain in January, is talking about as skipper.

That has also been helped by still having Jamie George and George Ford around.

I am not saying this in a derogatory way about Owen Farrell, but Ford and George have a very different leadership style to someone like Farrell.

Maybe that softer, calmer leadership from Itoje, George, and Ford is getting more out of the players?

There will be so many factors that the coaches and management team have considered in finding what is getting the best out of this squad.

At the moment, the formula, the melting pot, and all those ingredients that are going in are looking very positive for England.

The next three games against Fiji, New Zealand, and Argentina are vital for the confidence of the team and its players.

If, over the next two years, Allianz Stadium becomes a fortress - an intimidating place for opponents to visit - and the team starts winning games in different styles as players grow more confident in expressing themselves, that confidence will naturally carry into their performances away from home.

Will you go to Paris knowing you have the capability to beat France in a Grand Slam game?

There could an opportunity for the England management to apply a little bit of pressure to their players - if they climb the world rankings after winning the next three games.

Given that would be 11 wins in a row, the team could be pushed forward in a different manner - a contrast to past years filled with questions about leadership or a lack of confidence in certain areas.

Instead of excuses, the focus will be on teamwork and elite performance to accelerate their rise in the world game.

Quietly, the implications of winning the next three games - and where that would position England in the eyes of Scotland, Wales, Italy, Ireland, and France ahead of the Six Nations - are significant.

It could create a new perception and complexity around playing England that other teams have not faced for quite some time.

They will be thinking, "England are a handful here."