Italy’s tactics were fine, it was England’s (lack of) response that ruined the game

Let’s get a few things out of the way first, before addressing Italy. 

1. Firstly, Farrell had a very poor game. Obviously his kicking was appalling, not only all the missed points, but also the 2 missed penalty kicks to touch. But more importantly, he reverted back to the slightly angry youngster he used to be, with late hits and generally stroppy behavior. 
2. Secondly, Hartley also had a very poor game. As a player, he didn’t make much of an impact, but as a captain, he did nothing to rally the troops in the face of ‘unusual’ tactics. As one comemtator said on RTE2, this was the end of any thought of him being the Lions captain (potentially even being on the Lions tour). 
3. Thirdly, Hughes had another bad game, shipping far too many unnecessary penalties. Not a shocker, but just not making an impact or reading the game. He’s just about OK as a replacement, perhaps, but we need a better Billy back up. 
4. Fourthly, the 2 Italian tries were well taken, but very poorly defended. Look at the ‘defensive’ line up for the kick at goal – one massive whole on the rebound route. And for Campagnaro – a fine player yes, he should never have got through. 
5. Finally, England’s overall attitude and response to Italy’s tactics was woeful. They complained and demonstrated their lack of understanding of the laws, but they did not address it and adapt.

Where Italy’s tactics bad for rugby?

As a fan watching the game, I hated it and I hated Italy for using them. But with thought, I realised I was hating our response to the tactics not the tactics themselves. We need to be honest, this is not actually new. As Paul O’Connell said on the BBC highlights, the Chiefs have done this before (which I didn’t know) and it’s happened at International level. However, we’ve seen it before with the maul. By not engaging in the maul, you create the ‘truck and train’ and the potential for the penalty. So a tactic to disrupt a team is not new (in fact, Paul O’Connell said that’s exactly what they did to beat South Africa 2 year’s ago). For me the issue is merely that England failed to understand what Italy’s approach gave to them as an advantage and just effectively sulked.

Could England have done anything to counter the tactic?

The more I think about it, the more options England had. So I will do a list of all the things that we could have done:

1. Fast ball. If you recycle the ball very quickly, rather than playing a ruck scenario, then Italy would not have had the time to stray ‘offside’. England completely failed to just massively up the pace
2. Maul it instead. If Italy are not going to play the ruck, then don’t go to ground. England normally play the double hit to have a player protect the ball immediately on the tackle. All they had to do was switch to a mini-maul and do a slow drive. This would either create a big line break or suck defenders in. Not a huge change needed.
3. Pull a defender in to create a ruck. Literally, just pulling an Italian player to ground at the tackle area would have created a ruck. Not sure it happened once.
4. Keep it tight among the forwards. Leave the No.9 effectively out of it. Just use a forward based strategy. 2 go in, next person goes in on the pick and drive with another forward on back up. Recycle and repeat.
5. Up the middle. There are no defenders, which is a dream. So keep going through the middle to suck defenders in.
6. Crash ball. So the Italians keep going ‘off-side’, so consistently have forwards running up on the short crash ball from the forward. With these tactics, you have a metre off-side area still, so it’s a guaranteed pass (Haskell even confirmed this safe metre distance at one point).
7. Chipping over the ‘ruck’ with someone to run on the ball.
8. Keep it very wide. Teams don’t do this for fear of losing the ball. But if Italy have a clear strategy of not engaging the ruck, then by going wide fast was a smaller risk, so do it.
9. Do the same as they were doing (in fact, England did this a couple of times with some effect)

So the reality is that with the ball, England had 8 distinct and not difficult strategies to attempt on the fly, and really, they barely tried any (apart from a bit of going up-the-middle). 

It barely seems worth rating players for this match. The best that can be said is that this is an incredibly stern kick up the ass for the players and hopefully for that, a positive. I’m sure part of Jones’ reaction is to protect the players and make the story about him, not them – effective as always with his media strategy. But I also suspect more than ever that he’s pretty angry with himself. But for what it’s worth, Itoje had hit best outing at No.6, Te’o wasn’t awful. And Nowell was a significant improvement (still don’t understand why he’s not starting). 

For all this, I do think the law will be addressed. Sure, there are ways of dealing with it, but Eddie is right in saying you cannot have a game when for all of it the No.9 can’t pass to his team. On the one hand it depowers an element of the game, but you will effectively end up with a form of rugby league if the tackle area becomes just that and not a contact area. 

So on to the Scotland game. Who were superb in the 2^nd half against Wales (although it must be said that Wales were pretty average too). If we were playing Scotland on their patch, I’d have them as favourites. At home, I think England should be able to just about nick it. Assuming Scotland don’t come up with any clever tactics, obviously!