England 47-17 Italy
Well. Where to start?
England did get a big 30 point win, but it was a funny old game and
England, particularly in the first half, did not play as well as was
hoped. There are many things to work on before the visit to the Aviva
Stadium in Ireland in two weeks time, but there were also some huge
positives on display after that euphoric win in Wales.
Before getting to my
player by player analysis, I want to quickly focus on the injury to
Mike Brown and the reshuffling that had to occur. First I just want
to say that I hope Brown has a speedy recovery, and it was nice to see him
back out and sitting on the bench after a horrific injury saw him
taken off on a stretcher. This injury created a problem in the backs,
and the solution ended up being this: 12. Twelvetrees, 13. Burrell,
14. Joseph and 15. Watson. A lot of people were worried about this
set-up for a couple of reasons, mainly because Cipriani could have
been a good full-back choice, and Joseph is not a winger. But I have
to say the set-up took nothing away from England's performance –
in fact, all of those players adapted to the situation phenomenally.
Of course, it will always be better having players in their proper
positions, but ultimately there was no reason for the worry today.
Let's start with an
England player, and who better to start off with than Jonathan
Joseph. Two matches, three tries and countless metres later, Joseph
has smashed his way to being first choice for the 13 shirt. He has an
unbelievable amount of natural talent, and he put it all to stunning
use today. The first try for Joseph came after 27 minutes, and was
the result of a seriously good break and run. Watson, a player who
was excellent at full-back today, was there with him at all times to
ensure the try was scored if Joseph failed to make the it to the
line, but Joseph knows how to step around tacklers and he did just
that to gift England a much needed 7 points, after the conversion, to
put England in the lead by 10 points. Before this point in the match the score had been too close between the teams, and England needed
something to give them more of an advantage. Joseph provided just
that, but this was not his only moment of brilliance in the match. He
made an incredible 123 metres throughout the course of his 80 minutes
on the pitch, and this prowess culminated in his second try on 61
minutes after a perfectly timed pass from George Ford allowed him to
make a sensational break up the field to touch the ball down over the
line. There are simply not enough superlatives to describe Joseph's
performance today – he is well on his way to being a world class
player, and will be a revelation for England in the World Cup later
this year. The Man of the Match award deservedly went to him today, and I can see many more coming his way during his time with England.
For me, Sergio Parisse
was Italy's best player today. An absolute monster in defence, he
made a multitude of tackles to help keep England from scoring on many
occasions. I have watched him play for Italy many times and have
never seen him have a bad game. Whilst Italy obviously have a
terrible record in the Six Nations, Parisse consistently plays like
he belongs in an international match, and he continues to push
himself in be in the top end of the stats come the end of the match.
Italy were defensively superb last weekend against Ireland and,
despite letting in 6 tries today, it could have been a lot more had
he not taken the charge and put his body on the line to stop England
from running in a ridiculous amount of points. England winning by 30
points actually, in my opinion, demonstrates not only how inaccurate
England were on occasion, but also how well Italy defended right up
until the end of the match. Considering how well we played in the
second half we could have put many more points on the board, and
Italy have their captain to thank for stopping that from happening.
Sergio also managed to score an excellent try for Italy after just 4
minutes, shining a spot light on his class. In terms of the English
defensive effort, Robshaw was head and shoulders above the rest,
demonstrating to everyone why Lancaster has confirmed he will be
England's captain during the World Cup. One of the contenders for man
of the match today, he has silenced all of his critics, including me,
who said his form was not good enough to warrant him being on the
pitch. He effort was monstrous today, and he was all over the field
proving himself to be a nuisance to the Italians. After a difficult
first 40 against Wales last weekend, Robshaw stepped up and led
England to victory with his excellent captaincy skills and
decisions. The same could be said for this week – he did not go out
there presuming that we would win by a huge margin, and that was the
correct attitude to adopt. Italy put up one hell of a fight in the
first half, and Robshaw acknowledged this by making the decision a few times for England to put 3 points on the board when a penalty was awarded.
It's very common for us
fans to hear about the battle of the tens before a match starts, but
today there was no contest. George Ford was, in my opinion, miles
better than last week and actually kept a cool head for the whole
match. Only 2 points were missed when he stepped up to kick between
the posts, and his defensive work was actually fairly good today. He
made a great tackle on 48 minutes by simply holding on to the players
leg and not letting go. This may not be a 'proper' tackle as it were,
but it was very effective. Cipriani also came on after 60 minutes,
and scored an excellent try a few minutes later after a great break
and pass from May, cementing the England fly-halves as the obvious
winners today. In terms of the Italian fly-half, Haimona had a
shockingly terrible game – he missed every kick that he attempted,
and this resulted in a loss of 10+ points for Italy. These kicks
would in no way have allowed for Italy to win the game, but they could have
given the team some momentum to keep pushing for tries against an England
defence that was sometimes easily broken. It was broken in particular
by Mourisi, another Italian player to have a really solid game. His
two tries came after some great breaks through the English defence and showed us that Italy do have some sparks in attack, although they
do not come nearly often enough.
I found myself
disappointed with two players in particular today – Ben Youngs and
Jonny May. Youngs did show a couple of moments of brilliance, in
particular his try after he took a quick penalty on 55 minutes, but on the whole he
was much too slow at the breakdown. He was told to use the ball time
after time, which really highlights the fact that England need Danny
Care back in the squad. Care is so much faster and clinical at the
breakdown, something that England are sorely lacking right now. I
find it unfathomable that Care has now essentially fallen down to
third in the pecking order – it would be nice to see him
re-selected for the EPS in the lead up to the Ireland game in two
weeks time. May was average today, and it says something when this
leaves people disappointed. He was electric in the Autumn
Internationals last year, but this just has not manifested itself in
the two matches he has played this year. He did made a couple of
breaks and a fairly good amount of metres, but this is not good
enough for a winger. They should be consistently breaking up the
touching line – look at George North for example. Jonny May just
has not brought his excellence to the Six Nations yet, and it may be
time for Lancaster to consider his options in that part of the squad.
On the whole, it was a
good performance from England. They did win by 47 points to 17 after
all. But it was a very shaky start, and England did not quite reach
that pinnacle of greatness that we know they can achieve. There are
still some issues that need to be ironed out in time for the visit to
Ireland, because I can assure you that is going to be one tough
match, and is likely going to be one that we need to win in order to
lift the Six Nations trophy. Saying that, there are some real
positives for England this year and Lancaster has actually done a
very good job of selecting the best players available for his squad.
Thank you for reading!
Carry Them Home,
Jess.
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