It remains to be seen if Stuart Lancaster will still be England head coach by the time the Six Nations starts, but he expects the bulk of the squad to still be around including Sam Burgess.

Lancaster's position is under review after England lost 33-13 to Australia at Twickenham on Saturday meaning they became the first host nation to exit the Rugby World Cup at the pool stage.

England still have one more match to play against Uruguay in Manchester this weekend and Lancaster has made eight changes to his starting XV, while Burgess drops out of the matchday squad entirely.

However, Lancaster said that nothing should be made of the decision to omit Bath star Burgess - who has been linked with a return to rugby league - and does not expect vast changes to the squad moving forward.

"We had a good chat and I spoke about putting in a good performance for your country. The last impression you leave is an important one in any competition, in any sport and in any walk of life," he said.

"I 100 per cent believe that the group of players sat at Pennyhill in January for the Six Nations will be very similar to the group we have now.

"Internally, I'm determined the team stays together. We played brilliant rugby for 12 to 18 months. We've won a lot of games." 

On whether Burgess has slipped down the pecking order, he added: "No I don't think so. I don't think you can read into the fact that [scrum-half] Ben Youngs has gone down the pecking order.

"It's just the team for this game. I've not had any conversations with [Burgess] about a move to rugby league. I genuinely, 100 per cent didn't know that story was even out there.

"My last conversation with him was about going to back to Bath and he can't wait to go back."

Lancaster also stated that the disappointment of failing to make it out of the pool stages will always stay with him.

"I'll never get over it. We are the host nation but we are out of the World Cup and that hurts deeply," he said.