BBC’s Rugby Union Weekly.<\/a> “When you represent England you want to win trophies – Six Nations and World Cups.<\/p>\n“That’s definitely the ambition of this team. We have to work together, align and build the mentality.<\/p>\n
“To reach those goals we have to win games like the one in front of us [against Australia]. That’s why this weekend is extremely important.”<\/p>\n
Since this year’s disappointing opening Six Nations defeat by Ireland, England have put together a seven-match winning streak.<\/p>\n
An impressive series victory in Argentina, while their British and Irish Lions were away in Australia, showcased some of their best rugby under Borthwick.<\/p>\n
Late-game lapses cost England last autumn, when both the Wallabies – now a far stronger outfit – and the All Blacks snatched wins in the closing stages.<\/p>\n
Borthwick has responded by naming six Lions – including Ellis Genge and Tom Curry – on the bench for the game with Australia, hoping to maintain intensity deep into the match.<\/p>\n
Things are moving in the right direction: depth is building, performances are improving – but to truly believe, England must now start beating the best on a consistent basis.<\/p>\n
“It is about how hard we are willing to work in order to solve problems when the game gets a bit sticky,” added Itoje.<\/p>\n
“When faced with adversity, it is about how we react and support each other.<\/p>\n
“They are important characteristics and attributes to be a dominant team.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England are yet to establish themselves as genuine Rugby World Cup contenders for the 2027 tournament in Australia.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-237216","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}