Captain Maro Itoje hailed England’s vastly-improved scrum as a “weapon” after his side’s 33-19 win over New Zealand.
England beat the All Blacks for just the ninth time in their history in the Quilter Nations Series clash, securing a first victory in the fixture at Allianz Stadium in Twickenham since 2012.
While their lineout was put under significant pressure, the hosts’ scrum was on top for much of the contest, earning two crucial penalties in the second half — including pushing the All Blacks back over their own ball on the 60-minute mark.
A seven-man scrummaging unit also held firm against the full complement of New Zealand forwards after Ben Earl was sent to the sin bin in a sign of how England’s scrum has developed over the last 12 months.
Head coach Steve Borthwick had chosen to withhold a British and Irish Lions front row of Ellis Genge, Luke Cowan-Dickie and Will Stuart on the bench, and the trio made an impact after starters Fin Baxter, Jamie George and Joe Heyes had stood up strongly before their arrival.
Itoje believes that England’s improvement in the area has been key to their success this year.
“Our scrum’s a weapon,” Itoje emphasised. “We genuinely believe that our scrum’s a weapon. I think over the last year, we’ve been showing that and it’s been growing.
“I remember when Steve first came in [as head coach at the end of 2022] and he showed us the stats of where our scrum was at. And it was nowhere near where an English scrum should be.
“We’ve worked hard. Credit to the scrum coach, Tom Harrison, and the work that the front row, but also the back row and back five have done in terms of the application of the mindset. So we want to continue to be on that. We think it can be an even greater weapon for us. To win games, to win Test matches, it needs to be.”
Harrison followed Borthwick from Leicester Tigers having worked his way up through the coaching ranks at Welford Road following a relatively modest playing career.
Prop looked a problem position at the end of the 2023 World Cup for England and Mako Vunipola, Joe Marler and Dan Cole have all since retired from international duty, while Kyle Sinckler has been unavailable since joining Toulon last year.
The emergence of Baxter, Heyes and Stuart as Test props has therefore been welcome, with the versatile Asher Opoku-Fordjour and fellow youngster Afolabi Fasogbon are pushing hard for places behind them. Borthwick is pleased with the depth he now possesses in that area.
“The England scrum has been strong for a period and has been developing well,” the head coach said. “I think Tom’s a fantastic coach and has been developing there.
“It is a competitive group. There are some good players who are not quite in that group like [hooker] Theo Dan, who wasn’t in the 23. Asher, the quality of player he is. We are to continue to develop that scrum because it does have such a huge impact in the game.”
Borthwick confirmed that lock Ollie Chessum has been ruled out of next Sunday’s game against Argentina after suffering a foot injury in last week’s win over Fiji.
