Saturday 13 February 2016 13:15, UK
George Kruis says Saracens team-mate Maro Itoje is ready to take international rugby by storm.
Kruis will start in England's second row in Sunday's Six Nations clash with Italy in Rome, with Itoje waiting for his chance to make his debut on the bench.
Itoje has been tipped for greatness for some time, and he is widely regarded as a likely future England captain.
Kruis knows him well as they play side-by-side for Sarries, and he says Itoje has all the qualities required to make an international forward.
"Maro has massive potential. Hopefully he'll fulfil it and I'm sure he will. He's a very good player and looks at the game in a lot of detail, putting the time in," Kruis said.
"He's also humble enough to know he has to keep his head down and keep working.
"He wouldn't be here with England unless he was ready to make the step up from club level.
"He'll bring what he does for Saracens to international level. He's a level-headed guy who has played in big games before.
"People say he's only played in club games, but at Saracens we've played at places like Clermont and Racing Metro. He'll do well."
On three of their last four visits to Rome, England have won by five points or fewer and have struggled to extract themselves from the attritional forward game at which Italy excel.
Rather than criticise Italy's desire to turn the match into a slugfest that can make for a poor spectacle, Kruis admires their effectiveness.
"Italy are a team who want to slow everything down and to turn the game into bit of a scrap and a fight. Their ability to do that is an art in itself," Kruis said.
"We've seen that, especially in the set-piece where they try to slow it down and make it 50-50 instead of what we want. That will be a big challenge for us.
"Eddie wants us to play with tempo and play the sort of game that suits us. If we do that we'll get the result.
"We know that in recent times we have won by five points or less, and that speaks volumes in itself.
"Italy's captain Sergio Parisse is a massive talisman and gets them going, so we'll be looking to take him down early."
