Watch out Ireland
England vow to improve for Dublin after blitzing Italy
ENGLAND boss Stuart Lancaster felt his team’s victory over Wales last week had a knock-on effect on the players in the 47-17 defeat of Italy at Twickenham.
Lancaster’s men took time to get going in the second match of their Six Nations campaign, conceding a try early on to fall 5-0 behind to the Italians.
After going in 15-5 up at the break and then extending the lead to 18-5, England were then pegged back to 18-10 in the 48th minute by another Italy try, before subsequently moving out of sight.
Asked afterwards if his side had been suffering something of an emotional hangover at first from last Friday’s 21-16 win in Wales, Lancaster said: ‘It looked that way, without a doubt.
‘It was a soft try we conceded first up, and it took until half-time. I gave them a bit of a rev up and said ‘listen boys, we need to up the intensity’, and I thought we did that a little bit in the second half.
‘Overall, if you had said to me at the start of the day that I would get 47 points, I would have taken it if I’m being honest. But I’m slightly disappointed we couldn’t do better.’
The brilliance of Jonathan Joseph was evident once again as the lightening-fast outside centre followed up his try against Wales by plundering two more, his footwork and pace tormenting the Azzurri defence.
Billy Vunipola, Ben Youngs, Danny Cipriani and Nick Easter also crossed, but it proved to be an afternoon of frustration after the euphoria of an outstanding start to the Championship in Cardiff.
Italy touched down through Sergio Parisse and Luca Morisi, who claimed two tries, and failed to fin- ish two more chances, while fly-half Kelly Haimona was unable to land a single one of his four attempts at goal.
Lancaster knows England will need substantial improvement for their Grand Slam eliminator in Dublin in two weeks’ time.
‘We know we’ve made progress but we know to beat Ireland in Ireland we’re going to have to step up again,’ he said.
‘Someone like (Ireland fly-half) Johnny Sexton will bang those kicks over. It’s an area (discipline) we need to improve on.’
Other than the devilry of man of the match Joseph there was little on this performance to frighten Joe Schmidt’s men after their win over France, although England’s management will justifiably credit Italy’s stubborn resistance for some of their own shortcomings.
The victory did not come without cost after Mike Brown was knocked unconscious during an early collision with Andrea Masi and had to be driven from the pitch on a medical cart following several minutes of treatment.
Brown later returned to watch from the stands, but the full-back now faces the return to play protocols for concussion and is a doubt for the third instalment of the Six Nations in Dublin.
England’s subsequent reshuffle appeared to be a missed opportunity as Joseph was switched to the right wing and Anthony Watson dropped back to full-back with Billy Twelvetrees coming on in midfield, Danny Cipriani remaining on the bench until his final-quarter arrival.
‘It was a big shift to put him [Joseph] on the wing. He still found a game to influence the game,’ said Lancaster.
‘JJ of all our centres has been top ranked. As the season’s gone on his case for inclusion has become over- whelming on his club form. There are a few selection decisions to be made for Dublin. Billy certainly put a marker down.’
Italian captain Parisse struck a positive note when reflecting how the visitors managed to regularly ruffle the England defence.
‘We really tried to play our rugby, we scored three tries against a good team, with a good defence,’ said Parisse..
‘We’re doing good things, but it’s still difficult to be positive when you lose by 40 points.’