England 36 - 11 Italy

Oh how a scoreline flatters to deceive. England were woeful, and Italy for quite large parts of the second half at least, looked like the only creative team on the pitch.

The problem? England scored 1 try (their last) with a simple passing pattern from a line-out, and only just made that. Their other 4 tries came directly from mistakes, sometimes a string of mistakes, made by Italy where, to be frank, my mum and I could have scored.

Pointing fingers in rugby is often not that easy but, sadly, you would have to say Mauro Bergamasco deserves to be on the end of the finger pointing for two tries all on his own. (He may also have made mistakes in another one by being out of position.) Mauro is a very good flanker, playing at scrum half he had a disaster - passes going awry, getting into rucks and letting the ball pop out to an England player and the like. You've got to admire his courage to step up and give it a go, but he isn't a scrum half, and you would probably have to say that this decision cost Italy a chance at winning.

But, Italy weren't the only team at fault. England were slow, incredibly slow, at getting the ball from the ruck. They had the creativity of a wet paper bag, and so would run in a desultory fashion a couple of phases, each one actually letting the Italian defence organise BETTER, and so be forced to kick the ball away. Not every kicking decision was a good one - they got into the habit of kicking and so kicked earlier and earlier, but many of them were good at that point. England made them good though by being so unimaginative.

Brian Moore, a commentator I usually love to hate came out with two very quotable moments. "Tickets here cost £85 don't they? I want a refund" and "It doesn't matter how much you tweak the rules, if the players don't want to play rugby, you can't force them." And that's really how bad England were.

The final touch - when the commentator asked Moore to name the man of the match, my immediate thought was Parese. Moore named Ellis, and I don't have a problem with that, but when the first thought is for the losing captain, it says something about how bad the winning side were.

Wales next week for England. I'm sure they won't be thinking of it yet, but when they watch this, the Welsh will be rubbing their hands, licking their lips and looking to rack up a big score.