THIS might surprise some people, but personally, I don’t really care about what England do in the Six Nations Championship next year.

I know the Six Nations is an important competition to the supporters but I feel that actually, next June is ‘the big one’ as far as England are concerned.

To me, the most important thing for England is to get some sort of win, any win, from their three-Test series against the All Blacks in New Zealand next summer.

I’m not talking about a series win, just one of those three Tests – they have to get a win in one of those to really move forward.

If they could do it, I believe it would really give them the big shot of confidence they need to believe they can take on – and beat – anybody.

The Six Nations will be an opportunity to experiment with the players and game they will need to make that happen.

One thing you can say for this England side is that they have character.

When you go 17-3 down against New Zealand and come back, that’s something, and some sides would have capitulated.

That said, there are still some serious question marks with Stuart Lancaster’s side.

I’m very excited about the forwards – they seem to have one that are going to do more than compete and there is cover for every single position in that eight.

When it comes down to it though, this is not an England side with ‘X Factor’ in the backs.

There doesn’t seem to be anybody there to do anything extraordinary and the one man who probably could have, Manu Tuilagi, is injured.

The other thing you wish for is that Twickenham would sound like it did on Saturday for every single international match.

An atmosphere like that only seems to happen when it’s the All Blacks in town and you’d probably have to go back to the corresponding game last year for a similar one.