Eurosport - Sun, 08 Feb 17:54:00 2009
England beat Italy 36-11 in the opening game of the Six Nations but it was a flattering win as they failed to show the improvement Martin Johnson had demanded following their November drubbings.
England, beaten by Australia, South Africa and New Zealand in the autumn international season, were never in danger from the moment fly-half Andy Goode marked his return to international rugby with a try after two minutes.
They led 22-6 at halftime thanks to further scores by scrum-half Harry Ellis (pictured) and centre Riki Flutey. A second for Ellis and a late score in the corner by wing Mark Cueto made it 15 out of 15 wins for England against Italy.
However, England played barely any constructive rugby against a disorganised and injury-ravaged Italian side, had James Haskell and replacement Shane Geraghty yellow-carded, and will need to find a rapid improvement for next week's game against defending champions Wales.
"It's always the same first game back," man-of-the-match Ellis said. "It was a bit stuttery at times and we need to improve in every single area."
Goode marked his first appearance since 2006 by running on to Fabio Ongaro's over-thrown lineout throw and moments later chipping through to score his first international try in his 10th appearance.
Cueto, in his first game since the 2007 World Cup final, set up the second with a penetrating deep kick and thumping follow-up tackle. Haskell showed good skill at the turnover to set up Ellis, promoted to the side this week after an injury to Danny Care, to score.
Mauro Bergamasco endured a torrid time as emergency scrum-half and launched a wild pass above the head of Gonzalo Garcia which the centre could not hold. Goode was on hand to hack ahead and Flutey, who struggled to live up to his billing in his debut series in November, scored his first England try.
Italy suffered another setback when they lost fly-half Andrea Marcato to injury after half an hour, although his replacement Luke McLean landed two penalties to put his team on the board.
Goode, normally a highly reliable kicker, missed three of his six first-half attempts.
Coach Nick Mallett eventually admitted defeat with his scrum-half experiment at halftime and brought on Giulio Toniolatti, who had only 15 minutes of international rugby to his name.
Italy looked more composed for the change, while England lost their way, and the crowd had to wait until the 55th minute for their next decent attack, and the fourth try, when Ellis ran in from 40 metres after a break by Flutey.
It was a rare moment to savour as England, as they did in their home defeats by the three Tri-Nations teams in the autumn, lost their shape and discipline in a second half almost devoid of any flowing rugby and punctuated by errors and an aimless and inexplicable kicking game.
Italy took heart and grew in confidence and they got their reward in the 72nd minute when winger Mirco Bergamasco scored in the right corner.
Comment 70 - 89 of 89
hey steeveengland , did u know that guy ANDY MANN , he is scottish , guess what he is doing to all these
Hey why is there a strong rivalry between england and scotland ?? Its like dog and a cat fight !!!
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England were again clueless.
How many more times do we need to see Noon ambling round the pitch. He is a DISGRACE!
Tait should be playing.
Meares is a waste of time too, put in Hartley.
The flower of scotland... is a weed.
And the flying scotsman is finally silenced. Oh dear,
ENGLAND= masters. scotland=@#$%
England are the rulers of the world. scotland are ruled by the world; end of story. Bow down to England scotland, you speak ENGLISH language, and rent the @#$% part of the country that we dont want! HA HA
Q: Whats the difference between England and scotland? A: England owns scotland, scotland are a complete bunch of @#$%, that take drugs and screw their own family, and end up on jeremy Kyle because there nan is pregnant to her own grandson! Sad Sad jealous nobodys
at the end of the day lets all face facts both italy and england made mistakes in team selection and on the field of play they now have 4 games each to correct the issues with italy this may be harder as they have a smaller pool of players to pick from
whereas england should on paper have selection problems through good competition for all positions.
but if you don't get rid of the old pals act the problems will persist and fresh blood does'nt have a chance.
ps.i am a scotsman and try and put an objective view on all teams including my own as i'm just as worried about our performance as anybody!
England where fortunate that Mallet played Bergamasco at scrum half otherwise it could have been a different story.
i cant believe everyone has slammed the performance yesterday with a very weakend squad no pocession and little fluency we scored 5 tries and jumped on every mistake they made italy arent the whipping boys of 5 years ago they go places to win there scrum is strong there line out is normally good they hit hard and slown the ball and game down to suit there own players and now fitness isnt an issue there i think they will shock a few teams. my only issue is the fact that we spent 20 of the 80 mins with 14 players disapline is a key in the modern game peneltys mean points and if players consitantly offend maybe the bad out weighs the good
It will be interesting to see how the jocks do against the taffs later today though.
English Rugby is play at much too slow a pace and Johnsones selectios reflects the 5 years he spent away from front line action where he is picking players from memory of the good old days why on earth else would Gould have played. Just look at the difference in pace of the Irish / France game. When will some tell the group of fowards who like to clutter the mid field that being dynamic is not about standing there and trying to brake the game line from a standing start but about entering the rucks and maul and driving over and though the ball. I'm starting to believe this current crop of players are sucoming to the footballers memtality of all glamour and no results
Got to feel sorry for Bergamasco, Toniolatti played well, Mallett made big mistake there.
What's England up to? what's the point of loading the midfield with forwards so there not at the breakdown resulting in slow ball supplied to slow forwards making no ground.
Playing most of the game this way, They must have spent a lot of time doing this on the training ground.
What are the coaches up to?
I found a hot place..... it's called the Reeperbahn.
Dennis England wasnt the only team making mistakes. What the TV didnt show you, is the amount of Italian players taking swings at then English OFF THE BALL. but nothing was done about it. Everyone is way too busy trying to make England look bad, OK it wasnt the best game. OK mistakes were made but at the end of the day we played a better game and WON. END OF STORY. We have 4 more games in which to prove all the negative England haters wrong
+There is some ignorant rubbish posted on this page today, for goodness sake, comment on the game and then go away. Don't get into these childish, insult swopping exchanges like the football morons! England won because of an amazingly crass, naive decision by MALLET to play a back row forward at the pivotal position of scrum half, which led to the England tries. I am still stupified by the amount of juvenile, 3rd team level penalties given away by England players in their own half. These are international, professional players, what is actually going through their stupid heads when they do these things. Gerharty - what was that all about? Blatantly taking out a player in the air when you have been on the field 2 minutes? When he did come back on he did nothing.
You should try watching any England game in a scottish pub. I doesn't matter who we play, the place is alway full of croations, argentinians, french, italianss but all with scottish accents
Are you Scottish, or rubbish? same thing, I guess, the scots have been the whipping boys of British rugby for as long as I can remember, some things never change, Ned Kelly
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