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England coach Stuart Lancaster says there is no risk over the selection of Sam Burgess in their Rugby World Cup squad and insists the door is not closed on Luther Burrell's international aspirations.

Despite having just 70 minutes of Test rugby under his belt and having played most of his union career in the back-row, Burgess has been included as one of four centres in the England squad for the World Cup. His inclusion was only rubber-stamped on Thursday morning when Lancaster made the final calls on his World Cup squad in what would have been one of the hardest selection decisions of his England tenure.

For Burgess, he will now focus on the Test against Ireland on September 5 before looking to force his way into the starting XV for the World Cup opener against Fiji on September 18. He was included alongside fellow one-cap centre Henry Slade and the more experienced Jonathan Joseph and Brad Barritt.

Despite Slade and Burgess' relative lack of Test action, Lancaster says their inclusion came down to the confidence the coaching group have in them to be able to perform come the World Cup.

'I wouldn't say it's a risk," Lancaster said. "It's exciting, but I understand the selection decisions that we've made. But all we can do is judge it on how much confidence we have in the players based on what we've seen over the last 10 weeks, alongside everything else."

England's preference in the centres is to have a ball player and a carrier working in tandem. Lancaster was impressed with how Burgess and Slade combined on their Test debut against France a fortnight ago and it was that performance, alongside their feats in training that persuaded him it was worth giving them a shot.

For Burgess, in that combination of ballast and ballerina, he brings the physicality. "It is about balance," Lancaster added. "To win at this level, you need physicality, ball-players, and finishers. Sam certainly brings the physicality, at 116kgs, and is quicker as any of our centres, except for JJ and certainly as quick as Luther.

"He is powerful, understands and read defences very well. He is a very aggressive tackler but one of main attributes that goes unnoticed more than anything else is that he runs effective lines, and even when he doesn't get the ball.

"There was a try in Wednesday's training in which he was a big part and didn't get the ball, when ran the line he did, three good defenders stopped because they thought he was getting the ball and Alex Goode ran round the back and in for a try. It is that threat at the line, and the ability to change the line, that has put him in the picture."

Lancaster admitted the talk where he let Burrell know he was not in the 31-man squad was emotional for both. During Lancaster's Leeds days, he worked with a teenage Burrell and has since been a key figure in his development. And though he missed out on the final selection call, Lancaster sees an international future for the Northampton centre.

Lancaster said of the Burrell decision: "Yeah, it was tough, in all sorts of ways really, going back to the emotional connection with someone you have developed as an academy player and you have worked with since he was 15 years old.

"But it's hard to grade them. It was as hard to speak to Alex Corbisiero as it was to speak to Dave Attwood as it was to speak to Kyle Eastmond or whoever it was in the last time [of cuts]. But that [Burrell] was a particularly tough one and I've got a huge amount of respect for him, for the way he has handled it.

"What we have tried to do is Faz [Andy Farrell] and Catty [Mike Catt] have sat down with him and tried to give him a really good A, B, C of this is what you need to do to get to the next level.

"I don't think for one minute that this is Luther Burrell's last chance to play for England. We've got the World Cup to come and go, we've five Six Nations games, we've got a warm-up game before we go to Australia then we've got the tour out there and beyond. He's only 26, 27, so he's got another World Cup in him."

Alongside the Burgess-Burrell dilemma, just who to pick out of Ben Morgan and Nick Easter also went down to the wire. Morgan has played just 40 minutes of Test rugby since breaking his leg in January while Easter impressed against France in Paris last weekend from the bench.

Morgan has been a key figure in the Lancaster era while Easter was only brought back in from the international wilderness ahead of the last Six Nations but in the end the Gloucester No.8 won the race.

"The [selection] picture is painted over 3 or 4 years. Ben Morgan was in that room in 2012. I gave him his first cap. He's played 28/29times. A lot while I've been in charge. I cannot think of a time when he hasn't played well. I can think of times like against New Zealand in 2012, he was man of the series in November, was outstanding and a leader in Argentina. So he'd have started the Six Nations as first-choice.

"He has the confidence that his injury is fully healed. Ben definitely demonstrated that, the first step being the first France game and the then two weeks since then. But it is unbelievable what Ben has done with the work that he has put in, the work that the Gloucester medical team and the physios here have done recently. He's on track. I was always told he would be fit and available for the start of the World Cup and to be fair to everyone they have absolutely nailed it. He is."