England v Italy: Five takeaways as enforced changes bear fruit for Steve Borthwick while ‘hyper intelligent’ player benefits Fin Smith
England celebrate try against Italy in Six Nations.
Following an entertaining 47-24 victory for England over Italy in the Six Nations, here’s our five takeaways from the Round Four clash at Allianz Stadium on Sunday.
The top line
A glorious day of 21 degrees at Twickenham saw a rugby match to celebrate the conditions as both England and Italy contributed to a wonderfully open game of rugby that was punctuated with some brilliant individual tries and scores.
For Italy’s part, that elusive win against the Red Rose is still in their future but their tenacity in going about their work right until the final whistle showed a big step forward from the side that fell apart under French pressure in Rome in Round Three.
With more ball of their own and less of a physical challenge in front of them that Scotland had provided two weeks ago, England demonstrated greater shape in attack, and especially in midfield than we’ve seen from them for a long time. It was simple, pragmatic and structured rugby, driven by Fin Smith at ten and finished off by some lovely touches from Elliot Daly, Marcus Smith and Tommy Freeman.
England’s tries came from Tom Willis, Freeman, Ollie Sleightholme (2), Marcus Smith, Tom Curry and Ben Earl, with the brilliant Ange Capuozzo, Ross Vintcent and Tommaso Menoncello all crossing for some lovely tries from the Azzurri.
It may have ended up a 47-point win for England but the margin of 18 points seems about right on reflection, as Italy provided some wonderful moments of skill and entertainment to the sell-out crowd of 81,681.
Enforced changes fall England’s way
Losing Ollie Lawrence might have seemed to be a blow for England, but with Marcus Smith coming on at 15 and Daly moving to outside centre alongside the classy Fraser Dingwall, the hosts looked to have far more sharpness and shape in attack than we’ve seen for a long time. Daly made two absolutely crucial interventions, showing precisely why his vision and ability to spot soft shoulders or broken defensive seams in front of him.
The Willis try was started by the big eight himself aided and abetted by England power down right flank. Willis finished off what he created after sacking Stephen Varney and turning over possession but it was Daly who was key in hitting soft shoulders in exit and spotting the games for the England tramline moves that got Willis into a scoring position.
When Lawrence went off and Daly moved to 13, his influence continued, as he provided a delightful long grubber, a wonderful piece of vision and execution that saw Freeman gobble up gratefully to crash over on the right wing.
With Fin Smith looking far more comfortable with his Saints cohort on his shoulder, it seemed that England saw things a little earlier than they have to date in this tournament. Dingwall is a hyper intelligent player and a keen student of the game and there’s little doubt his presence at 12 gave Smith the second pair of eyes in attack he’s used to at club level.
Renewed power
Looking at the match stats, the post metre carries from England showed a completely different picture to those of a fortnight as they made 362m, an outstanding return for the big carriers up front, led by a superb showing from all of England’s back-row cohorts.
Top of the list was Earl, always a man who loves ball in hand with 17 thumping efforts for some 82m post collision, an epic effort considering just how good the Italian centres defended.
The power theme continued in the breakdown and a lot of Italy’s indiscipline came from the barge and bang that England employed. It forced the Azzurri to throw players in, leaving them shorter in defence, and often transgressing as England squeezed the life out of them in the collision.
Add in another impressive set-piece performance, with a big impact from the replacement props, and a thunderingly good performance in maul defence (attack was less convincing) and it showed again that England’s basics are just moving forward on an upward trajectory, a key measurement given issues in those areas in recent times.
Contestables catch England out
Italy’s intellect and organisation in the kick battle, especially in the first half, was a real positive for them. They averaged a 65% retention rate off their own kicks and it was the work of two of their backline stars that created the first try for the brilliant Capuozzo.
Firstly a neat short chip from Paolo Garbisi was collected by the formidable frame of Nacho Brex, a man at 6’3″ that dominates the aerial battles. A swift recycle saw Monty Ioane attacking at the edge, who provided the flying Toulouse full-back Capuozzo with a collect and crash over for a beautifully worked try.
Garbisi kicked with real precision, changing the kick point of attack from wide to centre and back again, and the likes of Ioane, Matt Gallagher and Capuozzo all created some profitable moments from Garbisi’s industry.
However, Italy’s second try was something to pin up on the art gallery wall for prosperity; a quick throw-in from Ioane found that man Capuozzo once again and the Azzurri flyer simply ignited the afterburners with acceleration of the kind that Twickenham used to see from Jason Robinson.
The full-back skinned England’s centurion Jamie George with nothing more than a raise of Latin eyebrows, splitting the England primary in half before offloading to Vintcent to scorch over for one of the tries of the season, one created in Lyon and Toulouse and finished in Exeter, as the Italians abroad combined for the moment of the match.
Looking forward
England now lie on 15 points in second place in the Six Nations table after this impressive bonus-point win. Above them, France sit on top with an obscene points difference, with Ireland still having a mathematical chance of winning, despite lying a point behind England.
It all relies upon Scotland doing a job on France in Paris in the last round of the tournament, but given the fireworks in Dublin on Saturday, that appears a rather forlorn hope.
This season was always about improvement for Steve Borthwick‘s men and there’s little doubt he’s achieved that. Enforced selection calls have at times improved the England effort and Daly’s performance moving to 13, and Marcus Smith coming on early are two such moments that fell England’s way in a positive but unplanned manner.
In the final analysis, England made 936m and Italy 511m in some lovely movement, a wonderful treat for the home and travelling supporters that saw a lot of action with ball in hand. But the biggest takeout will be that the home team have taken another shuffling step forward and with every round this season they have grown in stature.
In short, they’re measurably improving.
