Dan Robson believes he is in prime position now to challenge for Ben Youngs' No 9 shirt after overcoming deep vein thrombosis.

The Wasps scrum-half has never started for England, only managing a handful of minutes off the bench in each of his nine caps.

But now over the blood-clot problem that saw him miss three months of rugby and the 2019 World Cup, Robson is ready to kick on.

'My game is probably in a better place,' said the 28-year-old.

'Before I was maybe perceived as that impact player. It was obviously an easy out for me to be like: "yep, that's fine, I'm in the England squad, I've achieved a lifelong goal. Two minutes' off the bench, I'll take that."

'It's pretty naive looking back but it's the way it was for me.

'The injury put a lot of perspective on things for me. It wasn't ideal timing. I felt like I was just getting into that rhythm and getting comfortable in camp.

'I basically live in calf socks, and long journeys I'm not great with now. I've got to stop every hour to do little bits and make sure I'm moving, I sit with my legs up against the wall after some big sessions to let the blood flow.

'I know if I'm on top of that I'll be in the best position going into the weekend.

'If I get the nod to start, I'll really embrace that and do the shirt as proud as possible.

'Ben is an incredible player. The fact he's got 106 caps for his country is pretty ridiculous. Every time I've been in camp he's been pushing me and I like to think I'm pushing him.'

England want to open up their game against Wales next after a middling start to the Six Nations.

Robson added: 'We just need to get back to playing our instinctive best. We maybe lost that a little bit against Scotland but we are building nicely and the Italy game was a good stepping stone for us.'