Courtney Lawes backs Saints' English contingent ahead of Six Nations

Recently retired England great Courtney Lawes might have sent a subtle hint to Steve Borthwick recently that the England head coach should be looking at a number of his Northampton Saints teammates ahead of the Six Nations.

The Saints made it two from two in the Investec Champions Cup on Friday, backing up their opening round win over Glasgow Warriors with a tight victory over three-time champions Toulon at Franklin's Gardens. Sitting in fifth in the Gallagher Premiership, but only two points off leaders Sale Sharks, this has been a decent start to the season by Phil Dowson's side, with a number of young English players shining.

Other than Lawes, Lewis Ludlam and more recently Alex Mitchell, Northampton have a host of players who have a handful of England caps but have never established themselves in the Test team. Five players (Curtis Langdon, Trevor Davison, Alex Coles, Tommy Freeman and George Furbank) all have under five caps which came during Eddie Jones' tenure, while Tom Pearson earned his first and only cap under Borthwick in the summer in a World Cup warm-up against Wales. But if anyone knows what it takes to be a Test player, it is Lawes, who has amassed 105 England caps and a further five for the British & Irish Lions.

The 34-year-old was full of praise for his compatriots after the Toulon match, saying he hopes they get the chance to run out in white again.

"The whole team have stepped up," he said to northamptonsaints.co.uk. "There’s a group of the younger boys who have stepped up and matured a great deal over the last season. We’ve got a lot of boys in the pack, people like Curtis [Langdon] are doing great and then we’ve also got Moony [Alex Moon] and Alex Coles who are performing really consistently. People like Sam Graham, Tom Pearson and Juarno Augustus coming back in too. And that’s what we need, that strength in depth.

“Mitch [Alex Mitchell] has also been on great form since he got back from the World Cup. And then there’s Furbs [George Furbank] leading the charge, with Fraser [Dingwall] and Freemo [Tommy Freeman] too.

“It’s great seeing these good English players playing consistent rugby, playing well. Hopefully they get a shot to do it on the big stage."

Lawes himself appears to be in the form of his life currently since returning from the World Cup. The flanker was one of England's top performers in France and has backed that up with player of the match performances against Saracens and recently Toulon.

When reflecting on his current form, he said: "I’m just trying to do my thing. I’m just enjoying my rugby.

"I’m just trying to play well, to play for the boys and we dug in today for each other.

“Regardless of whatever might happen, you always want to win silverware. You want those kind of memories and you want to play on the big stage. So of course something I aspire to do is win more silverware here. We’re on the right track.”