Twickenham scare for England leaves Lancaster feeling relieved

Stuart Lancaster’s side put in comfortably their worst performance of the tournament in edging past a side they normally beat soundly.

Toby Flood kicked six penalties in an 18-11 win over the Azzurri, who but for more accurate goal-kicking and a little more luck at the death would have gained their first win over the red rose.

But England hung on and head to Cardiff on Saturday and a title showdown with Wales. If they win, it will be their first grand slam in a decade and this limited performance will be forgotten.

A Welsh victory by seven points, however, would see the hosts lift the championship for the second year running, so long as they stayed ahead in the tournament try count between the countries.

Lancaster said: “We’re delighted to get the win and relieved because of the pressure they put us under in the last 15 minutes.

“We know we have to improve our performance going into the Wales game.

“Nobody is punching the air in the changing room. We know we can do better. It’s a case of lessons learned and we need to ensure we improve going into next week.”

The tense nature of yesterday’s game at least prepares England well for the stern test and hot reception they will receive at the Millennium Stadium.

He said: “From a coaching point of view it gives us a lot to go at.

“If we had won easily there might have been complacency or over-confidence seeping in. There won’t be any of that.”

Lancaster must now wait on injuries to the dynamic second-row combination of Geoff Parling (shoulder) and Joe Launchbury (elbow) before naming his side for next week’s grand slam match, but he insisted there were positives as well as lessons to take from their fourth victory in a row in this season’s competition.

He said: “We need composure to take opportunities when they are there. The try came from a poor delivery, a poor kick, poor defence, it gave them an easy try.

“But there was lots of good stuff we can build on as well so we’re not only depressed. I thought we created opportunities, what we didn’t do was finish them.

“At the highest level you have to be able to take opportunities. The good thing is we felt we created them.

“We missed one or two opportunities but going in at half-time at 12-3 we thought we would be able to pull away and finish the job off. But we conceded a soft try and suddenly it was game on again.

“Italy grew and played well in that last 20.”

Lancaster was full of praise for opponents who were written off as fodder ahead of the match. Italy beat France in their first game of the tournament last month and were brilliantly led by their incomparable captain Sergio Parisse on his return from suspension.

He said: “We paid Italy a lot of respect in the preparation. Sergio Parisse coming back in was a big lift for them and his performance personally was outstanding.

“They showed the strides they have made in the last 12 months under the new coaching regime. They beat France, pushed Australia in Italy, when New Zealand played them it was 23-10 with 70 minutes gone.

“Gone are the days when Italy turn up and people beat them easily. It proved more difficult than we hoped and credit to the way they played.”

Flood’s boot kept England ahead after Luke McLean’s try had reduced the arrears for Italy.

The Leicester No 10 – deputising for Owen Farrell who faces a race against time to be fit for Wales – was a relieved man at the end.

“It’s a pretty quiet dressing room,” said Flood. “There’s a fair amount of disappointment. We just couldn’t seem to get ourselves into the game after half-time, which was frustrating.

“We didn’t have the ascendancy that we had in the first half.

“We were pretty comfortable just before their try. We were in a good place, feeling we were about to kick on.

“We were really tested today, that 10 minutes after the try. We really had to be on our mettle and we did that and we managed to consolidate and make it right.

“It’s disappointing not to have kicked on and not to have scored a couple of tries, because there certainly were the opportunities to.

“Had we managed to pick those up, we could’ve been in a position where we were able to have gone out there, express ourselves and kick on.”

Worryingly for England, they have scored only one try in the last three games having scored four in the opening fixture with Scotland.

Yesterday they were guilty of spurning chance after chance, but their defence remains exemplary.

Forwards coach Graeme Rowntree said: “The guys at the end were just hanging on.

“We have come through a massive scare. Italy delivered everything I expected and credit to our lads for keeping their composure and coming through that.”

Italy coach Jacques Brunel – whose fly-half Andrea Masi was named man of the match – said: “The two halves were quite different. In the first half we saw England with a lot of possession. We defended well but we still had a few penalties in the first half, we had one or two good kicks and we nearly scored a try.

“In the second half we showed character. We showed we wanted to fight the England team. We had good possession but England had more discipline than we did and we incurred a few penalties.

“The difference was our level of freshness. We tried to train less hard in the week leading up to this match in order to have the level of freshness we saw at the end.

“We are on the right road and moving in the right direction.”