It was just a 17th cap for Tuilagi, who featured three times in England’s 2012 RBS 6 Nations campaign, yet already he has nine tries on the international stage.

And Tuilagi believes that he is unrecognisable from the raw talent that burst into the England team just before last year’s World Cup.

“The more you play, the more you learn. I feel like I have come a long way. I’m a lot more mature than I was. In life as in rugby, the older you get, the wiser you become,” Tuilagi told the Telegraph.

“You keep learning from the mistakes you made. All the frustration you have felt, you use to drive you on for the future.

“Everyone counted us out [against New Zealand], everyone wrote us off, everyone thought we had no chance.

“But we never stopped believing in ourselves. Put the caps of Carter and Richie McCaw together and they had more than our whole squad combined.

“It’s not about experience, though, it’s about the performance on the day. And the boys pulled out a good one.”