England set sights on All Blacks’ top ranking

AS the bricks and mortar keep piling high at Twickenham with the East Stand in the throes of a multimillion-pound makeover, so, too, do the aspirations of England soar.

Dylan Hartley, the captain, exhorted his men ‘‘to make a statement’’ against Argentina overnight and while there was a time when such comments would simply slot into the standard pre-match rhetoric, this is different.

This is the start of the two-year countdown to the World Cup, and Argentina are in England’s pool. This is a team who dare not rest for fear of being dropped. This is a team with a wallchart of objectives for every breath they take, every stride they make.

Hartley wanted there to be nothing familiar about the England side who trotted down the tunnel today, suitably clad in a change strip of charcoal grey, a visible sign of the transformation under way. In years past, the talk would have been of paying Argentina due respect, of not underestimating the underdog, and while due deference is paid to those verities, England are intent on setting their own enhanced standards, of going out hard and fast to show that they can genuinely aspire to one day topple New Zealand as the world’s No 1- ranked side.

‘‘We need to kick on and improve,’’ said Hartley, who led the side to a 2-0 series win in Argentina in June. ‘‘We want to be better than we were then.

‘‘The data shows that our fitness levels have gone up. The nature of how we train now breeds confidence. Belief has been growing. And the belief is that we can get better and that we can get to No 1 and win a World Cup.

‘‘If you don’t talk about these goals, these dreams, then you have no chance of achieving them. Of course we have focused on how to beat Argentina. We have been preparing for this match for three months. But there is a bigger picture. We want to be a better team than we were in the summer. And that is a pretty good statement if we have improved.’’

To that end, certain basics have to be tended to. The tone of the game was set up front with Hartley head to head with his Argentina counterpart, hooker and captain Agustin Creevy, ‘‘the man who makes them tick’’, according to Hartley himself.

It was the mano-a-mano battle in the set scrum that would define so much. Hartley, flanked by props Mako Vunipola and Dan Cole, was to have a heavy shift ahead.

There was little chance of either of those scrum lieutenants getting the ‘‘rested’’ treatment afforded to, or perhaps inflicted on, Maro Itoje and Owen Farrell. Tyro props Ellis Genge and Harry Williams, both of whom featured in Argentina, will have to earn their stripes.

Henry Slade has already done that in justifying his selection in Farrell’s England position of second five-eighth. What Exeter Chiefs’ multi-layered player now had to do was to create an unassailable case for his inclusion in every team that head coach Eddie Jones names from this point onwards. Telegraph, London