Italy vs England

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Italy vs England
Guiness Six Nations, 2024

Round One
Saturday 3rd of February
Stadio Olimpico, Rome
Kick Off 14:15 GMT

Referee: Paul Williams (NZ)
ARs: Nic Berry (Aus) & Pierre Brousset (Fra) Nika Amashukeli (Geo)
TMO: Brett Cronan (Aus)

TV Coverage ITV 1
Virgin Media (ROI)

Teams

Italy

Allan; Capuozzo, Brex, Menoncello, Ioane; P Garbisi, A Garbisi; Fischetti, Lucchesi, Ceccarelli, N Cannone, Ruzza, Negri, Lamaro (capt), L Cannone.

Replacements: Nicotera, Spagnolo, Zilocchi, Zambonin, Iachizzi, Zuliani, Varney, Pani

England

Steward; Freeman, Slade, Dingwall, Daly; Ford, Mitchell; Marler, George (capt), Stuart, Itoje, Chessum, Roots, Underhill, Earl.

Replacements: Dan, Genge, Cole, Coles, Cunningham-South, Care, F Smith, Feyi-Waboso

Nice by Mitchell.

Excellent by Mitchell

England will pull away now

Wish I had your confidence!

I hope ...

Superb finish from Mitchell.

Need to get the bonus point now.

Nice phase play from England and then Mitchell finishes nicely. That's better. Now need to build on that.

England definitely upped tempo and it's paying off

Wierd seeing Felix Jones wearing the red rose. Is he the first Irish coach for England?

Nice kick

Then muff the line-out

That was ripped not knocked-on?

Getting a bit frantic.

mountain man wrote:Getting a bit frantic.

Dingwall doesn't need to force that pass. Put us under pressure.

Free kicks given at scrums are just pointless, because 99% of the time it results in another scrum!

Just give a penalty and get the game moving.

Not sure about that offside - probably called by Nic Berry

Rare miss by the Italian kicker

Itoje properly doing a number on the lineout.

Someone is eagled-eyed reversing multiple calls by the ref for knock-ons etc

Italy rushing everything now and giving England the ball very cheaply

take the points

Roots taken a few lineouts so been good there.
C-CS on and Smith. Excellent.

Saved by C-CS

Naughty by Daly.

Has to be a yellow

*king idiot

Heaf wrote:Saved by C-CS

The defence that time defended the wide space as you're supposed to when you against an overlap. Force the wide and slow them down. Good tackle from CCS and then turnover from Roots.

Daly you prick

Stupid by Daly

Mr Bounce wrote:Daly you prick

He's been a waste of space.

Not sure why Daly is complaining about that

Roots man of match for me. Freeman also been good

Not been the greatest second half but a win is a win

Same as it has always been from Italy - lots of promise in patches, but not a full eighty minute performance.

7.5 is gutted

Well at least we've got the debuts out if the way for a few lads.

Roots picks up player of the match. Excellent carrying today and justifies his place. May have erred towards Itoje.

mountain man wrote:7.5 is gutted

At what?

carpet baboon wrote:Not been the greatest second half but a win is a win

Solid win against a decent Italy side but I think England will regret not getting a BP.

Heaf wrote:

mountain man wrote:

Heaf wrote:Last year first time England lost to Fiji, this is looking like first time England lose to Italy ...

Early days yet

I'm trying out the commentator's curse to get the opposite result

Phew it worked

So new boys capped, excellent.

No 7&1/2 wrote:

mountain man wrote:7.5 is gutted

At what?

England win

Collapse2005 wrote:

carpet baboon wrote:Not been the greatest second half but a win is a win

Solid win against a decent Italy side but I think England will regret not getting a BP.

Not enough ambition from England for that.

They went for 3 points rather than the try at 24-17 up which was rather telling.

Well decent win and some excellent work from new caps but defence a worry

mountain man wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:

mountain man wrote:7.5 is gutted

At what?

England win

Ah. Not really,I'm an England fan. Predicted a 5 point win so exceeded my expectations. We've not kicked as much which is great but that second half we've not really looked like scoring bar Freeman's nice dink through. The lack of bonus point looks bad for our table position come the end though.

No 7&1/2 wrote:

mountain man wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:

mountain man wrote:7.5 is gutted

At what?

England win

Ah. Not really,I'm an England fan. Predicted a 5 point win so exceeded my expectations. We've not kicked as much which is great but that second half we've not really looked like scoring bar Freeman's nice dink through. The lack of bonus point looks bad for our table position come the end though.

Ah scrub that. Only a 3 point win. Steward has looked slow hasn't he.

Italy probably deserved a BP, but they drifted out of the game for 30 mins of the second half

More comfortable than the scoreline looked unfortunately

Should have extended the lead at the end - no idea how they ended up both botching the scrum then letting Italy get another try.

Some signs of improvement and some signs of regression. Thoroughly mixed bag for England. New guys were pretty good, some of the old heads needs to be moved on (Marler, Cole, Care and especially Daly).

Italy look like they have improved a bit again. They are developing some good players.

Steward slow but did some good stuff. Don't want to see Daly again and I'd have Freeman at 13 and start Feyi-Wasobo on wing. Roots excellent and C-CS looks born to it.

CCS looks like the real deal. Freeman is going to get plenty of caps. Roots unflashy but very much the performance that was needed. But it wasn't a great performance. Not at all.

Italy looking better than they have for a while though.