Maro Itoje will take England victories at the World Cup ‘by any means necessary’

Maro Itoje insists England will do whatever it takes to win if a substance over style approach emerges as their blueprint for success at the World Cup.

George Ford kicked all 27 points in their rout of Argentina last Saturday as England responded to the third-minute dismissal of Tom Curry for a dangerous tackle by grinding the Pumas into submission.

It was a rousing riposte to a dismal warm-up campaign but having excelled in defence and shown the smarts to shape their gameplan according to events, a potent attack remains elusive.

Free running Japan are the next assignment at the Stade de Nice on Sunday and while Itoje would prefer to see England run riot, he will take a victory any way it comes.

When asked if it matters how the team win, Itoje said: “For me, it’s by any means necessary.

“Obviously, we like to score tries and we’d like to score loads of tries. But for me it’s by any means necessary as long as we get the win.

“Every game’s different and is going to present different challenges. The task is to find ways to get on the positive side of the result.

“We know Japan move the ball. We know they are a very clever team that comes up with clever plays. However, the goal and task is to enforce an English style of rugby on this game.

“We want to show our best hand and we want to defend it well. We want to impose our physicality.

“We want to get into our set piece game and when the opportunity is right our generals will fire us in attack. Yes Japan move the ball, but it is about us imposing our will on them.

“Japan run the ball more than Argentina and are very aggressive with how they play and the spirit and the energy of how they play.”

Japan are not the force that lit up the 2019 World Cup with the pandemic hitting them harder than any other international side as they were prevented from playing a Test for two years.

If, as expected, England dispatch a team who have fallen to 14th in the global rankings they will have clear sight of a place in the quarter-finals with group games against Chile and Samoa left to play.

𝐍𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐩: 𝐍𝐢𝐜𝐞 ✈️#ENGvJPN | #RWC2023 pic.twitter.com/qRAvthzaTx

— England Rugby (@EnglandRugby) September 15, 2023

But Jamie George accepts that if they are to progress further in the competition, they must develop more strings to their bow.

“If we’re going to win a World Cup, which is what we’re here to do, we know that we’re going to have to kick on from where we were,” George said.

“The great English teams that I watched growing up and that I have been a part of based their teams around great defence and great set piece.

“As long as we are doing that I think our attacking game flows off the back of that. We have got players who can do special things.

“You have just seen the start of us in this tournament. We hope you will see us score points in different ways.”