"The type of player that he is, he's going to be attritional," he said. "You saw in Australia in 2016, he was leading the charge. We asked him to lead that charge. If you ask people to play that way, there are sometimes going to be penalties around that.
"Could we improve our discipline? One hundred per cent. We have to, because you cannot afford to be giving international sides set-piece opportunities inside the 22. That's not just Maro, that's as a forward pack. ''We gave [away] a soft offside penalty in the middle of the pitch, 40 metres out which gave [South Africa] their first points.
"As a pack, that's something we have to do.''
Hatley also put forward tighthead prop Kyle Sinckler as another tone-setting enforcer, but suggested that Itoje, likely to remain alongside George Kruis in the second row rather than shifting to blindside flanker, was getting "better and better" and endorsed his
"confrontational" style.
"We see Maro being able to do that because of his stature and because that's the way he likes to play the game," Hatley added.
"He is confrontational.
''He likes to get on the front foot and if it's a strength, we will encourage him to keep pushing at it."