Robshaw confident of autumn victories

England captain Chris Robshaw believes the team need to improve on their form from the summer tour of South Africa as they prepare for the autumn internationals.

The Harlequins flanker, who has retained the captaincy for the upcoming fixtures against Fiji, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, admitted they will need to iron out the creases from their series defeat to the Springboks in the summer.

“South Africa is one of those very challenging places,” said the 26-year-old. “We had some good moments and some bad moments, and it’s about trying to build on the positive points and eradicate the weaknesses.”

England manager Stuart Lancaster described Robshaw's appointment as a "no-brainer", although it was only made official on Monday night once the squad arrived in camp at the FA's new training ground, at St George's Park.

“It’s always nice when Stuart asked me to do it, I grabbed it with both hands,” said Robshaw.

“But it’s something that we haven’t really thought about too much recently, it’s always been on a tournament-by-tournament basis.

“For the past couple of months it’s been all Harlequins, but now I’m looking forward to getting involved with England.”

Robshaw captained England to second place in the RBS 6 Nations championship and on the summer tour to South Africa, although he missed the drawn third Test with a broken hand.

The captain acknowledged the tests the team will face in their upcoming autumn internationals, but he still remains confident of coming out on top in matches against Fiji, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand.

“As players we want to go out there and we want to win, but it’s about being able to mix our game up.

“When you look at every team that has come to Twickenham for the internationals, they all play differently and I think that’s quite exciting that we need to be smart about how we approach games and our adaptability.

“When we come into camp everyone is straight into the structures we want to play. Everyone knows how we want to play, the moves, the line outs, everyone is straight back into it.

“Everyone is starting to understand each other, it’s the type of thing that does take time but hopefully we’ve been starting to develop that.”