RBS SIX NATIONS 2007
England V Italy
Match Review by Englandfan

Overview

I think I'm going to be mildly controversial in my first ‘armchair review' here, and suggest that, despite the received wisdom and comments out there, this was not as bad as it might have been for England . That said, it was definitely not as good as it should have been: more on that below. I'm not going to give a blow by blow account of what was a sterile and pretty boring game: I'll give some observations that I hope will generate some comments and responses, based on key points that struck me as I watched.

Gameplans

The Italians had an obvious game plan, which should have come as no surprise to anyone who follows rugby. They intended to play to their strength - a good set of forwards - by closing the game down at the ruck/maul/breakdown/lineout, and to kick for territory if they won the ball. I wondered if this plan would be reviewed after their poor forward performance against the French – it would seem not. In the event, it would appear that the loss served the purpose of firing them up: as Brian Ashton had pointed out earlier in the week, that was the worst possible result for England.

The English must have had a game plan, but it was not in evidence. My biggest single criticism is reserved for our 100% unbeaten captain, Phil Vickery. I love the big guy for all his old fashioned, Cornish pasty, blood and thunder, raging bull persona on the field, allied to a genuinely nice persona off the field – but the Italians sucked (if not suckered…) us into a forward battle, and he failed to get his team to say ‘nice try, pizza scoffers, but we're playing it wide, where our (in theory) superior skills will win the day'. We did not appear to try any tactical response: we just met brute force with brute force, and failed to dominate enough in that battle.

This is made all the more troubling by the presence of a number of ‘wise old heads' on the park: Jonny, Cozza, Mike Tindall, Jason Robinson, have all had leadership experience, and have fifty gazillion caps between them. Between Big Phil, them, and Brian ‘the ancient wise one' Ashton (is there another national coach out there who looks quite so much as though he's a model for assorted vampires who've lived a thousand lifetimes on a diet of blood???) I would have liked a much more intelligent decision making process. They've all been around the block, and yet we just didn't appear capable of reacting in any way except to keep bashing it up the middle, when that plainly wasn't working.

Forwards

The BBC put up an interesting stat at one point, which showed that the Italian front row had far more caps than the English boys opposing them. It showed. Overall, they had a good game. In fact, in the second half, I'd award the honours to the Italians. I'm not going to comment in detail on any individuals, because no-one's performance stood out as spectacularly good or bad. That's a sort of muted approval of Nick Easter – good for him, let's see how he develops... That said, both sides committed some basic errors: at one point, the Italians had a line out within 5 meters of our line, and went for a short line out. That had to imply an intention to either throw long to a receiver at the back, or to take the ball in the centre and get fast ball away to the backs. Instead, they caught it, and tried to drive… That was one occasion when the English pack simply drove them backwards.

Backs

The poor old Italians don't have any, other than Troncon, who played a blinder. If we'd focused on getting out wide, we might have achieved something. Instead, our route one approach allowed their defence to appear reasonable, because they always had time to re-align before we broke the gain-line, and their lack of attack was negated by simply booting for territory.

The English backs remain an enigma for me. Individually, there are guys there who are undoubtedly capable of the very highest quality of rugby, but this was a fitful and non-penetrating performance. There were passages of play that ran to 10 or 11 phases, without ever looking likely to pierce the Italian defence.

On individuals

I remain a Farrell fan: despite one awful pop-pass to nowhere from the ground, he played an intelligent game, and was – see my comments about decision making above – actually thinking when he played. A careful examination of the match on video shows that almost every time he come into play, it is to a clearly intended purpose – draw in opposing defenders and get the ball away, stop a break, get it out wide where there's space. This guy is a ‘chess playing rugby player'. They are few and far between in the current English squad, and they're key to unlocking the modern defence.

Ellis: another solid performance, with much less of a platform to work from.

Wilkinson: frightening mental focus, undoubtedly the world-class player in the England squad at the moment.

Robinson. One extraordinary moment where this tiny guy demonstrated his strength, with a hand-off from a standing start that drove a larger Italian opponent backwards off his feet.

Lewsey: Josh is definitely off his peak. He remains a very high quality player, but he's not making those impact runs he's capable of.

Balshaw. He's a Gregan figure in English rugby – people love to hate him. And yet, like Gregan, he has some great talent. He caught some evil high balls very well today.

Tait: showed his outrageous pace with a sprint for a cover tackle that was a joy to behold. More to come from this lad.

The Result

Overall, we were lucky: Jason Robinson's try wasn't: Josh Lewsey is clearly batting it forward in my ‘armchair slo-mo replay'. So, in terms of legal tries, the Italians won one-nil. Without Jonny ‘the metronome' to chip away at the scoreboard, this result could have been very, very embarrassing.

Conclusion

I said that ‘this was not as bad as it might have been for England ' at the beginning of this review. Why, given the above comments?

Well, there are several points. Firstly, I am genuinely pleased for the Italians. I have long felt that they are under-rated by many superficial fans. They remain short of top-class backs, but their forwards are now plying their trade in assorted English and French clubs at the highest level, and they showed it today. I don't want them to break their away duck against England , but I do want them to be recognised as the steadily improving rugby nation that they are. Their coach (Pierre Berbizier) has been described by Brian Ashton as the ‘most intelligent coach in Europe', and he and his forwards proved their class today: they had a plan, they executed it, and it caused England no end of trouble.

Secondly, despite that, the one thing we didn't see from England today was panic. They stayed calm enough, and they won. It was neither pretty nor intelligent, but under Ashton this team is at least now confident enough to keep its cool and take whatever points it creates. There weren't many, but a score of 20: 7 at international level is still a good win.

Thirdly, I'm quite pleased that this wasn't another ‘walk in the park'. England will know that they have work to do. Just as their humiliation at the hands of the French fired up Italy , today's result will make England determined to be more impressive.

Fourthly, and bizarrely, although we didn't penetrate, there were at least 6 passages of play where our forwards and backs linked to generate more than 8 phases of play. Against a team playing a ‘shut it down' game, the relative lack of fumbling, knock-ons and total inability to even catch a pass (that we have spent about 2 years displaying) was happily absent.

So there you go: I'm under no illusions, but the team won, and it displayed an ability to string passages of play together that is refreshing. The relatively weak score line should inspire intense focus for their next game. English man of the match? I'll say Farrell for his decision making, so lacking elsewhere. Italian? Troncon: he bossed a damage-limitation plan to great effect. Biggest English problem? Reliance on ‘that boot'.

Final Score:

England 20 - Try: Robinson, Pens: Wilkinson (5)
Italy 7 - Try: Scanavacca, Conversion: Scanavacca

England: Balshaw; Lewsey, Tindall, Farrell, Robinson; Wilkinson, Ellis; Freshwater, Chuter, Vickery (capt), Deacon, Grewcock, Easter, Lund, Corry.

Replacements: Mears, White, Palmer, Rees, Perry, Flood, Tait.

Italy: De Marigny; Robertson, Canale, Mirco Bergamasco, Dallan; Scanavacca, Troncon; Parisse, Zaffiri, Sole; Bortolami (capt), Dellape; Castrogiovanni, Festuccia, Lo Cicero.

Replacements: Ongaro, Perugini, Bernabo, Mandelli, Griffen, Pez, Pratichetti.