The Italian Job

England went to Rome and burgled a win that, to be honest, they didn't deserve.

Italy always play a fairly limited game, although in fairness it was both less limited and much faster than they showed last week in Ireland. The problem wasn't with that, it was that England went back into their shells and played an incredibly limited game back at them. This, quite efficiently, played right into the hands of the Azzuri who could kick ball away knowing that England would kick it back. In fact Italy's kickers won those duels time after time, and if Italy's line out had been a little more solid they could have punished England more severely.

Probably the best illustration of this was the sin-binning of Catrogiovani. In the previous 3 6N sin bins this season there were an average of 15 points scored by the side a man up. In this one? 3-3. Why? England, even with an extra player, wouldn't and didn't keep their hands on the ball. They had about 30% of the possession in that 10 minutes instead of 70% and quite a lot of that 30% was in their own half. Stupid, dim-witted and against any side with a bit more ambition than Italy they could easily have LOST the time that they had a man advantage.

The table will show France and England on top, but unless England play a lot better than that, it won't last come next weekend.