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After the drama, the dross. The thrills and spills of a vivid Saturday in the Six Nations Championship turned into a turgid, stop-start afternoon at the Stadio Flaminio. It was halting, it was frustrating and it was a damn close call. The Eternal City brought us the eternal match. It seemed to last a lifetime.
England did enough to hold on to their unbeaten record but it was a poor advert for rugby, Italy relying on their notoriously limited approach and England lacking the drive, the thunder and the wit to shake them off. This was the second narrowest margin of victory over Italy, only just eclipsing the four point win two years ago. A couple of months later coach Brian Ashton found himself out of a job. Bleak as the scenario was yesterday afternoon, there is no danger of this empire being reduced to rubble.
The Romans will tell you that significant structures are not built in a day but England supporters who flocked to the city at great cost must yearn for a hurry-up in the construction process.
There was the occasional shimmy from the likes of Mathew Tait, Mark Cueto, Ugo Monye and Riki Flutey but nothing sustained. The inclination was there but not the execution. Perhaps that is as good as it can get against Italy but you fancy that the All Blacks would work their way through the morass
England receive Ireland in a fortnight’s time and they will have to be sharper in attack, more polished at set-piece and play with far more devil and bite all over the field if they are to resist an Irish side bristling from defeat in Paris. True, they have won again and the accumulative effect of these victories will seep into their consciousness at some level. It wasn’t pretty, nor impressive but England are still hunting for major honours in the championship. That’s not a bad place to be.
Jonny Wilkinson was uncharacteristically off-key when kicking for goal, fluffing two easy pots in particular. Another long-range effort fell short. Those points are usually a given, and often settle nerves. Instead, England began to snatch at things. Wilkinson, though, did pop over a trademark drop goal with six minutes remaining after Italy had closed to within two points.
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