My daughter is watching this. England are pissing over the Italians and all the commentators can do is whinge that the England team isn't doing as well as they think they should. In any other country they'd be celebrating.
Bollocks. If Italy had had a scrum-half for the first 40 minutes, England would have been in trouble. The commentators are shit-scared because they care, & they're thinking about the games against Wales, France & Ireland. Against them, this level of performance would lead to humiliation. An All-Black, Wallaby or Boks coach watching his side play like that would be thinking of his next job, because he'd need to. The populace would be baying for his head on a spike, not celebrating.
Look at the second half: Italy were playing with their 5th choice scrum-half, who was obviously as nervous as hell & kicking the ball hurriedly, but because he was, at least, familiar with his craft instead of being a forward (albeit an excellent one) playing out of position, things came together. One fumble not made, by a bloke who was only playing because Mauro Bergamasco was played as scrum-half, and Italy would have won the second half.
Italy will actually come out of this game feeling disappointed at the result, but more confident of the rest of the tournament than England. Part of that is because of lower expectations, of course, but they'll have more confidence in their ability to play up to those expectations. The experiment with Mauro B. was such an obvious failure Mallett can't repeat it. Once Toniolatti came on he showed that he could do a good enough job to allow the team to play. Imagine the first half with Mauro B. playing open-side flanker, & a proper Italian scrum-half. . . could have been worse than the second half. Marcato would have been able to play, instead of being clattered every two minutes because of being on the end of poorly placed or mistimed passes*, & the rest of the Italian backs would have had a chance of being more than lawn ornaments.
I'm not looking forward to the next match. The Welsh are very happy indeed about today. I have a dreadful fear that Fatbloke is right.
Oh, I won't be watching it because none of the channels I've got access to will be showing the match .
You can't receive BBC1?
I couldn't help thinking, the look on Martin Johnson's face when England scored a try anyone would think he had money riding on the Italians
If his mouth twitches he's well pleased. He doesn't do smiling. Look at his reaction to the tackle Geraghty was sin-binned for, & you'll see his "I don't like that" face. Buried in his hands.
*I don't blame Bergamasco for that. It was Malletts mistake playing him there.