England head into Saturday's championship opener against Italy on the back of a hat-trick of thumping home defeats to Australia (28-14), South Africa (42-6) and New Zealand (32-6).

Borthwick admitted taking those results personally - two of which, against the Springboks and All Blacks, were record home defeats - he is determined to start making amends against Italy on Saturday.

"The autumn was a tough experience. There were some bitter disappointments," said Borthwick.

"I was part of a team that lost games and with results that were unacceptable. We weren't good enough in the autumn, we didn't perform to our best and we let ourselves down.

"I take that personally and we need to put that right. Every England player wants to set the record straight."

England manager Martin Johnson made six changes from the New Zealand defeat, three of which were enforced with injuries to Ugo Monye, Toby Flood and Danny Care.

Fly-half Andy Goode will start his first England game since the autumn of 2006 while his former Leicester team-mate Harry Ellis returns to the starting XV for the first time since 2007.

Mike Tindall starts at outside centre and Sale's in-form winger Mark Cueto returns to the England side for the first time since the 2007 World Cup final.

England have never lost to Italy in 14 previous occasions but they only managed to scrape home 23-19 in Rome last year on Borthwick's debut as captain.

The Azzurri feature a host of familiar faces to the England side, including Leicester prop Martin Castrogiovanni and Gloucester lock Marco Bortolami.

Head coach Nick Mallett has had to move flanker Mauro Bergamasco to scrum-half after losing Pablo Canavosio, Simone Piccone and Pietro Travagli to injury.