Maro Itoje preparing for the Six Nations. (Image: Getty)
Maro Itoje insists it is time for to finally deliver on their potential in Dublin – as they aim to prove computer experts wrong.
England have talked a good game for the past 12 months which have yielded just five wins out of 12 and a succession of near-misses.
Itoje laughed off an Opta boffins’ prediction that England have a two per cent chance of winning the and less than a one per cent chance of winning the Grand Slam.
Experts there fed all the data into their systems and simulated matches 10,000 times to come to that conclusion.
Itoje does recognise that side have failed to produce the goods in the last year, talk is cheap and results need to improve now whatever the algorithms say.
Itoje said: “That’s funny! We can talk about those things later in the tournament.
“But what 2024 showed us is that despite the results not going our way, most people would see the potential of the team and as players, we believe in what we’re doing.
Maro Itoje laughing during England training. (Image: Getty)
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“We believe in what we’re about and now our part of the bargain is to get over the line. England fans watching were disappointed that we weren’t able to win as many games as we’d have liked but I think they can see that we’re trying to do something here. Our job as players is to now get the job done.
“There’s no point me saying, X Y, or Z. What matters is what we do on the pitch, how I perform individually and how the team performs. So, time will tell how we do on that.
“In games you have a finite amount of chances and they’re valuable chances and if you don’t take them you’re not going to win. When those moments come you have to be brave enough to grab them.”
Stats show that England are up against it taking on a side who are aiming for a record third Six Nations title in a row at a ground where they have not won since 2019.
But Itoje has urged his side to revel in their status of being rank outsiders with the bookies to pull off another shock win over the Irish like last year’s Twickenham stunner.
He countered: “When people write you off, it always gets the juices flowing a little bit. Whether it’s in sport or when my teachers didn’t give me my expected grades and predicted me to get lower grades than I eventually got.
“It always gives you a little bit of extra motivation and, I guess, a bit more anticipation for what you can do and what you can achieve.”
Vice-captain Ellis Genge added: “I’d say definitely the enjoy an underdog psychology. It’s all fuel to the fire. Opta, two per cent chance, he must be a pretty smart bloke!
“We have every intention to go out and win. It’s probably fair that people are saying that Ireland are going to win off the back of the results we had in the autumn. Every single time we play and we give it our all. Unfortunately, sometimes the stars don’t align in that sense and they definitely didn’t in the autumn. We would have liked to have been four from four in the autumn, but we weren’t. We were one from four.”