Six Nations 2016: ‘Top talent Maro Itoje should be England's first choice,' says Saracens' Jim Hamilton

Itoje is a ready-made lock-and-flanker replacement for this weekend’s opener in Scotland if Northampton’s Courtney Lawes fails to recover from a hamstring niggle

Maro Itoje goes on the attack during Saracen’s victory against Bath on Saturday (Reuters)

While Saracens’ table-topping director of rugby Mark McCall claimed he was exasperated at all the chat after the 19-13 win over Bath on Saturday revolving around Maro Itoje, what else was there to do when Itoje had come through a first half of testing rigours on the back foot and was continuing to produce match-winning carries, jackals and tackles in the last 10 minutes? From the second row? At 21? Sorry, Mark, but those actions demanded a lot of words.

If Northampton’s Courtney Lawes fails to recover from a hamstring niggle, Itoje is a ready-made lock-and-flanker replacement for this weekend’s Six Nations Championship opener in Scotland.

“How he [Itoje] isn’t playing for England against Scotland is beyond me,” said Jim Hamilton, his heavyweight partner in Saracens’ engine room, who retired from internationals last year after 63 Tests for Scotland. “For me he is the outstanding talent. The effect he has on the game, both in attack and defence, is something you don’t see very often. I don’t pick the [England] team, I just get to work with guys like him every day and it is fantastic to see his rise. He’s a confident young man but there’s no arrogance with that, he’s hard-working and, first and foremost, he’s a lovely bloke.

“At the minute he’s got the world at his feet and he’s turning in these man-of-the-match performances. At Saracens we’re really happy to have him back from the England squad, but we want to see him go on to international honours. I am sure that is just around the corner, whether that is next week against Scotland or the following week [in Italy].”

Brad Barritt gave his latest answer to being jettisoned from the England squad with a monumental carrying performance in midfield, mixed with the defence that has helped restrict Saracens’ opponents to nine tries in 10 Premiership matches, nine of them won by the reigning champions.

The biggest worry for Sarries as they go next to Exeter was the way their maul was easily splintered in the initial exchanges. Bath led 13-0 at half-time, with a well-worked try by Tom Homer, and still by seven points with 11 minutes left. But with recent signing Dan Bowden forced off by a head knock they were gradually reined in by Saracens’ driving game.

So Bath lost all five matches in January – to Toulon twice, Newcastle, Leinster and Saracens – leaving them ninth in the Premiership and the only one of England’s six competing teams to be knocked out of the Champions Cup.

They have gained 17 points from nine matches in the league, but Mike Ford, the Bath head coach, believes the number required to reach fourth place and the play-offs remains attainable. The fact that Ford is making these calculations shows the club is a long way from the 150th-anniversary celebrations their chairman and owner Bruce Craig had in mind for this season.