Italy v England: Winners and losers as Azzurri remove Red Rose ‘thorn’ in style leaving Steve Borthwick ‘on thin ice’
Italy's Tommaso Menoncello and an inset of Maro Itoje.
Following Italy’s stunning, first-ever win over England, here’s our winners and losers from the Six Nations clash in Rome.
Winners
Italy
If there were any remaining notions that the Azzurri are still the whipping boys of the Six Nations, they were emphatically dispelled on Saturday in Rome as Gonzalo Quesada’s men did something that every Italian team in 32 attempts, 26 in the Championship, have failed to do – beat England.
The Red Rose remained the thorn in the Azzurri’s side. The only Six Nations team that they have failed to defeat. But that box has been ticked off and in style.
Throughout the years, Italy have threatened an upset but haven’t had the finishing touches to get the job done, but they are now over that hump and will head into the final weekend with an outside shot of finishing third overall.
Ellis Genge
Scrummaging is an art and Ellis Genge took a methodical approach to his artwork in Rome. While the impressive sculptures in the Italian capital leave little to the imagination, Genge was far more politically correct in the era of referees ready to penalise the slightest bum cheek out of place.
The 31-year-old is a wily operator and reached into the depths of his box of tricks to get the upper hand over the powerful Simone Ferrari, who has dominated looseheads this Six Nations.
He made sure everything was ‘just right’ at the set-piece to earn almost every 50/50 call in the scrums and was aided by his teammates, particularly captain Maro Itoje who was sure to scream ‘they don’t want to scrum’ with every reset – playing into the psyche of the referee.
It was a catastrophic defeat for England as a whole, but Genge’s reputation as an elite scrummager only rose in Rome as had the scrum struggled, the loss would have been by a larger margin.
Tommaso Menoncello
Paired with his partner in crime Juan Ignacio Brex again, Tommaso Menoncello was back to brutally bright best, running a truly beautiful line to canter right through the England defence and score a sensational solo try.
France managed to limit Menoncello’s influence in round three whilst the TMO erroneously denied him in Dublin but on Saturday, the Toulouse-bound superstar was flawless when he needed to be to rip up the old script and write a stunning new story of his own.
His try was the kind of score that centres dream of but his late canter down the left-hand touchline will feature more prominently on Six Nations’ highlight reels as he left four England defenders frantically trying to get a hand on him before smartly putting Leonardo Marin away for the match winner – a pass that was so far backwards that it almost time-travelled, giving the TMO no reason to interfere.
While Menoncello may have collected a Six Nations Player of the Championship award already, he has somewhat flown under the radar as a world-class operator, but that is not the case anymore as he is the main act in the Azzurri’s blockbuster and is bound to only get better with his move to the Stade Toulousain.
History-making Italy inflict a shattering loss on England to leave Steve Borthwick’s job on the line
Tom Roebuck
It’s been a topsy-turvy Six Nations campaign for the Sale Sharks winger, but his stocks are on the up again after his Murrayfield shocker. Roebuck cannot be blamed for the result, far from it, as he was comfortably one of the best England players in Rome.
For most of the match, he bossed the airwaves and expertly took his try-scoring opportunity. Will that ease his woes of being part of the first England team to lose to Italy? Not in the slightest but he deserves credit for his efforts.
Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for world-class coverage you can trust.
Michele Lamaro
When Michele Lamaro arrived on the scene as Italy’s new inspirational leader, he often looked like a man on a solo mission to drag the Azzurri to new heights. He racked up ridiculous tackle counts and regularly looked like the best player Italy had.
Since then, the team has grown with their skipper as he led them to historic victories over Wales and Scotland. However, 12 months ago, it looked as if the team was starting to outgrow Lamaro as his form dipped, he was displaced by Manuel Zuliani and Brex took over the captaincy.
He was rested for the July series in South Africa and played just once in November, against Chile, before embarking on his mission to reclaim his position and boy has he. Lamaro was outstanding in the victory over Scotland and was back to his trench work in the defeats to Ireland and France. Back at home, against England, he was heroic again.
He was a real force at the breakdown, lineouts and in defence. Lamaro’s evening looked to be over when he was dropped and thundered into the ground from an extreme height but he rose to his feet, brushed himself off and it was rather fitting that the warrior won the crucial penalty at the breakdown to seal the result before Italy’s inspirational leader had to be helped off the pitch.
Losers
Maro Itoje
We had to get the Tipp-Ex out as Itoje was penned down in the winners’ column after a blockbuster performance – quite easily his best this Six Nations.
He was a beast at the breakdown, relentless on defence and was once again loud and annoying as he played a crucial part in convincing referee Luc Ramos that Italy were illegal in the scrums. It was the Maro Itoje of old, but then he wound the clock a little too far back, producing a mind-numbingly stupid bit of play, earning himself 10 minutes in the sin bin.
Eddie Jones was wary of Itoje’s ill-discipline during the early stages of his career and then claimed that officials were ‘over-refereeing’ him. But in Rome, he was adequately punished for a moment of pure stupidity and immaturity that one thought he had outgrown.
Italy had formed their maul, England stopped it, and as replacement scrum-half Alessandro Fusco attempted to free the ball out to the backs, Itoje slapped it out of the half-back’s mitts. Not only did his indiscretion cost him 10 minutes in the sin bin, but it also cost his team the match.
His sin-binning briefly overlapped with Sam Underhill’s but before England were back up to 15 men, Italy had scored the try that put them in front, a position they did not surrender.
Itoje is far from the sole reason that England suffered a maiden defeat to the Azzurri, but his brain explosion was pivotal.
Simone Ferrari
After pulverising just about every scrum that he fronted up against so far this Six Nations, the supercar-named front-row forward stalled when facing the Baby Rhino.
It’s hardly panic stations for Ferrari, but he will be eager to bounce back on the final weekend of the Six Nations after his reputation suffered a small ding in Rome.
Tom Curry
England needed as many gladiators as possible on Saturday when they fronted up against a fired-up and passionate Azzurri outfit but lost one of their best in the business before the first whistle sounded.
The clash in Rome was tailor-made for Curry, a hard, uncompromising arm-wrestle, but his achilles heel throughout his career has been his ability to remain fit. He suffered yet another setback during a maul warm-up drill and was visibly distressed as he left the pitch.
Sam Underhill
Injury creates opportunity, and with Curry forced to withdraw, Underhill was promoted to the starting line-up. The Bath back-rower was slotting right in and enjoying a fantastic game up until he was too upright in a tackle and was sent to the touchline to sweat over whether his yellow card would be upgraded to red or not.
Ultimately, it was not but in such a close encounter, Underhill’s time on the sidelines allowed momentum to shift into Italy’s favour.
The experienced back-rower also produced a rather unsavoury exchange with referee Ramos during the first half. The flanker was bleeding from his ear and was receiving medical attention.
With World Rugby placing such a major emphasis on speeding up the game and limiting the amount of dead time in matches, Ramos was eager for the game to resume, stating he should leave the pitch to get further treatment.
Underhill hit back, saying, “You are a ref. I’m sorry, I’m staying out here for this one; you are not a medic; you are a ref.”
Ramos was well within his rights to order Underhill off. We can respect his desire to crack on but not his remarks.
Giacomo Nicotera
The Stade Francais hooker has been a shining light for Italy this Six Nations campaign and was hitting similar highs today against England until his moment of utter daftness.
He attempted to conceal his attentions at the breakdown by throwing his shoulder out as Ben Spencer went digging for the ball, but it was blatantly obvious, and he was duly punished.
Steve Borthwick
The knives will be out as high-flying England crashed right back down to earth this Six Nations. At the start of the Championship, the hopes were high that round five would be a Grand Slam decider against France, but now Steve Borthwick could be staring down the barrel of a joint-worst ever Six Nations finish.
A defeat to Les Bleus would subject England to a fifth-placed finish with an unlikely, yet possible, first-ever Wooden Spoon a possibility if Wales emphatically end their winless run in the Championship.
After just one win from four in the Six Nations, Borthwick is on thin ice and having already seen the All Blacks pull the trigger with the World Cup on the horizon, could England follow suit before it’s too late? They did it to Eddie Jones but the question remains, does he have more credit in the bank or not?
Borthwick rolled the dice with so many changes to his team against a confident Azzurri outfit and came up with snake eyes. Much of that was of his own doing too. After Curry’s injury, the head coach threw Chandler Cunningham-South onto the bench as he retained a 6-2 bench split. The ‘Bomb Squads’ have become incredibly effective in international rugby, particularly for England but the coach seemingly forgot the key principles that make it effective. It requires time for the fresh legs to get into the rhythm of the match or in fact, change it entirely.
But the likes of Cunningham-South, Marcus Smith, Henry Pollock and Luke Cowan-Dickie were only thrown into proceedings in the final 10 minutes, when England had surrendered their lead. Borthwick seemingly went into his shell and didn’t trust his replacements to get the job done, defeating the whole objective of selecting a game-defining set of replacements.
READ MORE: Italy player ratings v England: Azzurri’s attacking ‘maestro’ shows his class in historic triumph
