Captain Maro Itoje said he is excited about the potential of his England side but stressed they have a long way to go to get to where they want to be.
England’s 27-23 win over Argentina on Sunday was their 11th-straight in Test matches this year and means they have gone the whole of 2025 without losing at home. Their last defeat came in the Six Nations in Dublin against Ireland in February.
Since then, Steve Borthwick’s side have beaten Scotland, France, New Zealand and Australia, among others. The squad’s depth has also developed, shown by Max Ojomoh’s player-of-the-match performance in just his second Test.
Itoje said he was pleased with their autumn campaign — with victories over the Wallabies, All Blacks, Fiji and Argentina — but urged caution and refused to get too far ahead of himself.
“I’ve been a part of the England team for a number of years now and I’m as excited now as I’ve ever been,” Itoje told his post-match news conference.
“If you look at the quality of depth, look at the quality of play where I think players, we’re getting on board with how we want to play, so we just need to keep building.
“You only need to look at this game and see that there’s so much work that we need to do, but I think there’s a real appetite amongst the playing group to do that.
“I think we made some progress and [I’m] just really excited about the future. I think the team has a long way to go to become the team that we want to be, but again, that’s the exciting part.”
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Borthwick agreed the team have progressed both as a unit and individually.
“The team’s tracking on the progress we’ve talked about,” he said.
“We said it’s a journey, and I’ve said it a number of times, I’m not sure I’ve necessarily been believed, about the level of experience in the team, the games together, the level of experience coming off the bench.
“That’s always something we need to develop, and this autumn series has allowed us to continue that development.”
