Ben Youngs says it is an exciting time to play for England after starring on his 100th appearance in Saturday's Six Nations win over Italy.

The scrum-half scored two tries to help Eddie Jones' men to a 34-5 victory in Rome that kept alive their hopes of winning the championship prior to France's showdown with Ireland.

Youngs opened the scoring and was instrumental in a strong second-half display by the Red Rose, who held an uncomfortable 10-5 half-time lead after losing debutant Jonny Hill to a yellow card for a high tackle.

While their display in the first 40 minutes looked rusty, England were much improved after half-time as Youngs, Jamie George, Tom Curry and Henry Slade all scored to secure a bonus-point triumph.

It was a 21st Six Nations win over Italy in a row for England, with Youngs now on four career tries against the Azzurri, twice as many as he has against any other nation.

The Leicester Tigers man is already looking to the future, though, after becoming just the second man after Jason Leonard (114) to reach a century of England caps.

"I didn't want to build up to it too much during the week," he told ITV. "I wanted to focus on the process of playing – that was the most important thing for us, coming here and doing a job.

"I'll certainly reflect on it now with the boys and trying to absorb what the achievement is.

"I'm obviously very proud but the most important thing for me was to play my part in this team.

"We've got to keep going. It's a nice milestone but I've got the desire to kick on with these boys and all these young caps coming in, it's an exciting time to be part of it."

Looking back at England's difficult first half, he said: "We started the game well, at the start... I thought we went at them. But there was a large chunk of the first half when we couldn't get our hands on the ball, and we couldn't get our game on the field, but that's what international rugby is like sometimes.

"We went in at half-time and we got the job done in the end.

"We spoke about it being a grinding-down process. We were camped on our own line; maybe that yellow card shook us up a little bit. We got there in the end."