England Rugby are set for a long summer of preparations ahead of the 2023 Rugby World Cup with the players together for three months before the tournament kicks off in France in September.
Steve Borthwick's first training squad convened on June 11 at Pennyhill Park and essentially have a long international pre-season ahead of them as England do not face Argentina in Marseille in their opening group stage game in Pool D of the Rugby World Cup until September 9.
Before then England will tune up with four warm-up games, starting with Wales at the Principality Stadium on Saturday 5 August (kick off 5.30pm), with a return fixture at Twickenham Stadium scheduled a week later on Saturday 12 August (kick off 5.30pm).
England then travel to Dublin to face Ireland at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday 19 August (kick off 5.30pm), before returning to Twickenham Stadium to play Fiji on Saturday 26 August (kick off 3.15pm).
Despite having four warm-up games to tinker and fine-tune his side, England have confirmed Borthwick will announce his official 33-player Rugby World Cup squad on Monday 7 August after the first of the Summer Series games.
Of course with the nature of rugby players are likely to suffer injury heartache along the way so there could well be plenty of change before the first ball in kicked in anger in France.
