Stuart Lancaster selects England's World Cup squad, including league convert Sam Burgess

Stuart Lancaster has finally announced his 31-man squad for the 2015 Rugby World Cup.

After all the tension and speculation, Lancaster has decided to go with Sam Burgess as one of his four centres ahead of Luther Burrell in the most contentious decision of his reign thus far.

Despite a clamour for his inclusion after an excellent cameo against France in the most recent warm-up game, Lancaster has also decided to omit Danny Cipriani from the squad.

Cipriani has always divided opinion with fans and pundits alike, and his exclusion in bound to be a major talking point if Lancaster’s side begin to struggle once the tournament begins.

Lancaster finds room for league star Burgess

The biggest talking point leading up to this announcement has been over the selection of Bath Rugby’s Sam Burgess.

Having only moved to union in the past year after joining the west country outfit from NRL side the South Sydney Rabbitohs, Burgess has been selected as one of the four centres England will chose from at the World Cup, despite playing as a flanker for the majority of his performances at Bath last season.

His attitude and mentality are always seen as huge positives when it comes to Burgess, who seems to have an excellent attitude which can be crucial in a tournament as big as the World Cup.

Northampton Saints’ centre Luther Burrell is extremely unfortunate not to have made the squad after a string of fine performances for England over the past year.

Easter and Corbisiero amongst other cuts

Alongside Cipriani and Burrell in getting cut at the last moment are Luke Cowan-Dickie, Alex Corbisiero, Dave Attwood, Calum Clark, Nick Easter and Billy Twelvetrees.

Although a couple of these were expected, it will still be tough to take for the eight players, having missed out on selection for a home World Cup in the last set of cuts.

It is not necessarily the end for them though, and they will no doubt take positives from Stephen Donald, who was not named in the original All Black squad four years ago, before kicking the winning penalty in their triumph.

Group of death awaits Lancaster and co.

Now the squad has been announced, attention can be turned to the final warm-up game against Ireland at Twickenham, before the World Cup begins for real.

England are in the toughest pool in World Cup history, starting with a game on the opening night against Fiji, who look capable of bringing one the major teams down to size.

They then welcome Wales and Australia to Twickenham for mammoth matches, before ending up against pool minnows Uruguay in Manchester, where they may need to run up a big score to qualify for the knockout stages.