“Who’s using the Dictaphone?” Maro Itoje breaks convention and asks the first question as reporters gather around him. The England forward is grinning as he slides into a chair that looks three sizes too small for his 6ft 5in frame. Before we begin he fires off another: “You going to write in shorthand?”
That is what a first Six Nations win of 2023 can do for morale. Itoje is ordinarily an upbeat character off the field whose interests lie beyond the boundary. But he cuts a particularly calm figure at the Lensbury Resort in Teddington where England have been holed up after their 31-14 victory over Italy.
