Maro Itoje has pledged that his best is yet to come at the Rugby World Cup – despite the England lock roaring back to full fitness and form in France.
Itoje had been hampered by several issues that were limiting his ability to train and play at full intensity, but the Saracens star found a way to beat the concerns in a punishing summer of graft.
And now the 28-year-old is intent on hitting even greater heights than his impressive start to the global tournament.
England qualified for the quarter-finals without even playing on Thursday night, courtesy of Japan’s 28-22 victory over Samoa.
Steve Borthwick’s men will complete their Pool D campaign by facing Samoa in Lille on Saturday week, after which they will face a quarter-final in Marseille with Fiji or Wales the likely opponents.
The 72-cap Itoje is back to full bristling intensity at the World Cup, but revealed he is still far from satisfied.
“It’s definitely been better being able to express myself physically,” said Itoje. “During that period where it was a little bit more difficult to do that, it was a little bit more challenging.
“But I personally still feel there’s a lot more to go and a lot more than I can contribute in a positive manner for this team and in this tournament.
“I had issues going on in the background, which affected my ability to, I guess, exercise and perform.
“And once we were able to get all those things aligned, I was able to naturally have a response from the training that I was doing.
“Having a beneficial response from the rigorous activity, and that allowed me to perform and play better, I guess.
“I think there’s no top player across any sport, whether that’s rugby, football, basketball, whatever, who has a plain sailing career, or a career that goes exactly how they wanted it.
“You can speak of any of the greats and they will probably say, ‘I wish I didn’t do that’, or, ‘I wish I’d done that differently’.
“I guess that whole period for me was my version of that, where I had something structurally wrong and I didn’t know it was structurally wrong until I was quite deep into it.
I had something structurally wrong and I didn’t know until I was quite deep into it
“So I guess to be able to persevere through that period and finally get a fix for that was great.”
England could be forgiven for taking a long-range approach to the Samoa clash, now that they have qualified for the last eight.
But nothing could be further from the Borthwick coaching handbook. Instead, England are likely to send a full-strength team out against Samoa next weekend, to continue building fluency and cohesion.
Itoje had a starring role in England’s 27-10 win over Argentina that set a fine tone for the tournament, but he only has sights set on raising his game again.
England know they must continue to up the levels significantly, especially in light of their miserable August that comprised three defeats in four warm-up Tests.
Their vastly experienced big-game players are fully focused on taking the incremental steps required to thrive come the knockout stages.
“You know what? It’s funny because people after the game thought I’d played well,” said Itoje. “I thought I played alright; I don’t think I played as well as people were telling me.
“And that’s probably because I know where I can be if I’m properly firing on all cylinders. And I think the games have been a step in the right direction.
“But I’m not satisfied with that, I think there’s another level for me to get to. So hopefully Samoa, and by God’s grace the rest of the tournament, will be an opportunity for me to express that.
“But I think it’s definitely a good sign to be feeling that way.”
