England must ‘address the tough stuff’ after Scotland Six Nations defeat: ‘You can’t just hide away’

The night before England's big Steve Borthwick-era debut, tight-five cornerstone Ollie Chessum left the Test camp for some family business.

Leicester lock Chessum headed to The Stoop to present younger brother and fellow Tigers second row Lewis with his England Under-20s shirt.

A proud moment for the Chessum family, deemed significant enough to warrant a break from Six Nations preparations.

New England boss Borthwick might be a devil for the minute details, but he also runs a sufficiently relaxed set-up to plan around the kind of milestones that do not come twice.

The England U20s beat their Scottish counterparts 41-36 across the road from Twickenham, and the Chessum family marked the occasion in style.

"It was very special, not many people have a younger brother playing international rugby at Under-20s, on the same weekend, in the same position, against the same opposition," said Ollie Chessum.

"It was a really special moment for us two. There was talk about being able to see him the night before, but I didn’t know I was going to be presenting his shirt.

"Steve is a top bloke like that. I’ve had the privilege of working with Steve for the past two, three years of my career and he’s a great bloke.

"He works us hard, his attention to detail is second to none but he realises there’s a bigger picture outside of rugby.

"Boys have families, and he’s more than happy for me to go away and share that moment with my brother, which I can only thank him for."

Elder Chessum brother Ollie remains a veritable Test new boy himself, but aged just 22 and with only six caps to his name he boasts all the tools to tie down England’s tighthead lock role.

England desperately needed to bolster their scrum after a dispiriting autumn on the set-piece front, let alone on results.

Chessum offered vital ballast and stability in a fast-improving scrum that proved one of the plus points of Saturday’s 29-23 defeat by Scotland.

"When Steve came in we looked at where we were in the scrum and we were right down the bottom in terms of tier-one rugby, so there’s been a real focus on trying to be really controlled and do it on our terms," said Chessum.

"I was really proud of how the front-row fixed it up, they settled a couple of early issues, and then we were able to build into the game.

"And we can only keep building on it. My role in the scrum is simple, make sure you’re right behind the props and give them everything and let them go to work.

"For us now overall though we’re going to have to address the tough stuff, you can’t just hide away from it, you can’t veer from it – we're going to have to stare down the barrel and see where we went wrong.

"That’s how you learn as a team, that’s how you fix those issues."