Maro Itoje insists England 'ready' to 'do the job' on All Blacks

Maro Itoje insists England are ready to emulate one of the greatest days in the nation’s rugby history when they face New Zealand at Allianz Stadium on Saturday.

Six years ago the All Blacks were crushed 19-7 in the World Cup semi-finals but in four meetings since that special day in Yokohama, England have failed to register a win despite a series of desperately tight encounters.

Now they are in a midst of a nine-Test winning run and faced with the opportunity to deliver a statement victory that will define their 2025.

“At that stage of the journey of the team in 2019, we were ready for that sort of challenge,” England captain Itoje said.

“We felt that if we were aggressive and accurate in what we do, we would be able to get them.

“It was one of those weird games where they had periods on top, but it felt like there was only one outcome of that game. Hopefully we can do something similar this weekend.

“This is a moment that we are prepared for and we’re capable of doing the job. We’re ready.

“New Zealand are a good team, no doubt about that. They possess talent and accuracy and power that’s good enough to hurt any team, but we’re ready to take that next step.

“We have a clearer understanding of how we want to play. We have more belief in what we do and how we do it.

“The squad has gotten better and that matched with the experiences we’ve had over the last year or so, we’re more equipped to take advantage of the opportunity at hand.”

England faced the All Blacks three times in 2024, losing each of them but only by a combined total of 10 points.

At the time they were in the grip of an inability to clinch games against top tier opposition when the result hung in the balance in the closing moments.

Head coach Steve Borthwick has sought to address this shortcoming by stacking his bench with six British and Irish Lions who will bring experience, energy and X-factor to the decisive phase.

“Pretty much every match of the last 18 months bar one or two has gone down to those periods in the last 15 minutes,” Itoje said.

“You’re either just ahead or just behind and the team that can execute, keep composure, don’t do erratic things, stick to task but also do that at an incredibly high intensity, they tend to be the teams that follow through and win.

“We need to have a physical intensity as well as an accuracy to what we do. Playing against the All Blacks, you need to be sharp mentally and you need to execute when you get your opportunities because you don’t get many of them.”