Matt Dawson column: ‘England had Italy on the ropes but didn’t recreate French demolition job’
World Cup champion Matt Dawson reflected England’s six-nation victory over Italy in his BBC Sports column and evaluated the final day’s title battle.
This England team didn’t practice much in Italy’s dominance.
They scored 47 points with seven good attempts And showed some excellent offensive “intentions” that they often used in post-match interviews.
For players, victory will be a great experience and within 60 minutes they can be very satisfied with themselves.
But some of them may reflect on the past 20 and know they can do more.
When I commented, I found myself feeling frustrated. I don’t know if this is because I have high expectations for England because of the talent of the team, but we haven’t done it for a long time.
We made an excellent first attempt and then focused and Italy scored back. We made another attempt and they hit back again.
It feels like England always has Italy’s distance, not “Will England win this victory?”
However, my expectations are more accurate and disciplined in how England plays. There are some great moments in all of this.
I think there is more cohesion in the back row, including five Northampton Saints players. I like the first five minutes, Ollie Lawrence and Elliot Daly got into the Saints really well.
Daly sets the tone on the defender and you feel the way they are trying to play, Italy can’t survive.
The changes they had to make brought some wind to our sails due to Lawrence’s injury. They regrouped in the half and had 10 minutes to drive the game away, but then they kind of closed the store.
Twickenham feels a little flat, and I think that reflects the performance of England in the past 20 minutes. I remember Ollie Chessum taking a break from the ranking line and we slowed it down and kicked it onto the box.
Four stages of this intensity, England made another attempt somewhere, just like the first half, like the top team. It’s a feeling that we’ve done enough to win the game, let’s lock it in and don’t give up anything.
They had an Italian side on the ropes, lacking motivation after pumping in France, and then gave Juan Ignacio Brex, Tommaso Menoncello and some proud Italian players, which made it difficult but a little awkward.
England had a chance to grab their necks and settle them all.
You can see opposing Italy’s dominance over France facing Ireland. What it fixed for France in Rome’s absolute demolition mode is full of confidence in a tough game in Dublin.
If England absolutely demolished Italy, you might be heading to Wales with a slightly different mindset.
It was a good win, but you can dissect England’s attempt at Allianz Stadium in the 20-25 minutes of the second half. It’s just a very subtle difference, but I still really believe this England team has the trophy-winners and is able to do that, they make them acknowledge their dominance.
People like Ellis Genge may complain and complain that former professionals don’t understand what to do, but unfortunately they do it because they have succeeded and won trophys in the past.
They aren’t always successful, they’ve had tough times, but they’ve learned the way they’ve learned and won the game differently, so in the case they’ll recall previous experiences and if they’re in that situation, they can make themselves stand out.
