Saracens scrum-half Richard Wigglesworth insists England had not felt the pressure of a five-match losing streak prior to Saturday’s 28-9 win over Samoa and believes the Red Rose aren’t far away from matching the world’s best.

A pair of tries from Jonny May and a third from Mike Brown saw England claim their first win of the Autumn Internationals by beating the southern hemisphere nation at Twickenham and Wigglesworth says Stuart Lancaster’s side can learn from recent defeats against New Zealand and South Africa.

The Red Rose have come up short against the Wallabies and the Springboks this month, with their last test win away to Italy in March.

"It definitely bothers you not winning," stated the 31-year-old. "But I don’t think we looked at the bigger picture in terms of the pressure each defeat heaps on because you have that naturally without having to talk about it or think about it too much.

"We know we have played the top two teams in the world and come up short. As a squad we have got to turn those narrow defeats into victories against the best teams in the world, so we are not a million miles away.

"When we do our analysis we know where we could have been better, where the game was won and lost and we just have to learn from those defeats," explained the Lancastrian.

And according to Wigglesworth, Saturday’s final Autumn International against Australia is just another part of that process.

Said Wigglesworth: "You definitely want to test yourself against the best; we are consistently playing the best teams and that will only help us long term to be the best team in the world, so we are going to have to play them and match them as often as possible.

"I think each game stands alone in isolation. We worked on things and took the positives out the two games we lost (versus New Zealand and South Africa) but it is nice to win, that is why you play the game.

 

The former Sale Shark added: "We know this weekend it us going to be unbelievably tough and the last game of their season, so they will want to end on a high, and the last game for England for a while so we are going to want to do exactly the same."

Next year’s World Cup is already very much on the horizon and although the Six Nations are England’s next port of call in 2015, Wigglesworth is excited about the prospect of representing the Red Rose at a World Cup on British soil.

He enthused: "I think that (the 2015 World Cup) is every lad’s aim and I am no different. I know that he (coach Stuart Lancaster) has got his four number nines in mind and he can only take three of us so there is lots of rugby to play between now and then and a year is a long time. I have just got to think week-to-week and try to get better every time I step on the training field and if I do that and it goes well, good things will come.

"It would be unbelievable; I can’t even imagine how big it is going to be really - I don’t want to get too carried away about it. That has been my aim for quite a while but you can’t think too much about your long-term aim because you have got a week-to-week job to do."

Wigglesworth added: "If I don’t go then I need to know that I have done everything possible to make the squad. If I have done that and I fall short then I will be able to sleep at night. If I don’t then I won’t."

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