England Rugby

England sealed a 40-9 win over Italy in the 2016 Six Nations on Sunday to extend Eddie Jones' winning start as coach. The visitors survived a spirited first-half effort from the hosts before dominating after the break.

Jonathan Joseph stole the show with three second-half tries, taking all the suspense out of the match after a closely fought first half.

Carlo Canna had kept things close with three penalties, while George Ford scored the only try of the half and kicked a penalty of his own to hand England an 11-9 half-time lead.

Joseph proved the difference with a virtuoso second-half display, and Owen Farrell added a try of his own to rubber-stamp England's dominance.

The result means England are still perfect after two matches, with a massive contest against Ireland looming on the schedule.

Before the start of the game, Jones warned his players not to get into a war of attrition with the hosts, per BBC Sport's Chris Osborne: “We haven’t underestimated Italy. What I have said is that we need to express ourselves and show our ability. Don’t get involved in an arm-wrestle—an arm-wrestle is like a coin toss and it can be 50-50. We have seen that already in the Six Nations.”

England battled to open their Six Nations campaign with a close win over Scotland in Round 1, while the Azzurri came into Sunday's contest having impressed in their 23-21 loss against France in Paris.

The Italians played with excellent discipline during the opening stages and looked sharper than their opponents. Jack Nowell had to think quickly to deny Sergio Parisse, who found space on the left, and more pressure from a poor lineout resulted in a penalty, which Canna converted to give the hosts the lead.

Former England scrum-half Matt Dawson wasn't too worried:

Turnovers played a key role in the opening stages, as Ford and Farrell were sloppy with their distribution. Farrell tied it up with a penalty of his own just 13 minutes into the contest.

England then went ahead, courtesy of a Ford penalty, but Canna tied things up again from the tee.

Billy Vunipola gave away another silly penalty for coming in from the side, but this time, Gonzalo Garcia pulled his shot from long range wide of the post. Per Rugby World, the penalties were quickly becoming a problem for the visitors:

England desperately needed to put some distance between themselves and the Italians, and Ford eventually did so after 25 minutes, finishing off a well-worked try. Vunipola powered his way toward the try line before offloading the ball to Ben Youngs, who spotted Ford out wide and delivered a beautiful pass.

ESPN Scrum's Tom Hamilton thought the try looked familiar:

Farrell missed the conversion, keeping the score at 11-6, but the try provided England with some much-needed momentum. Anthony Watson stripped Garcia shortly after the restart, and it seemed as if the visitors would add more points before half-time.

Instead, it was Italy who impressed to close out the half, showing some crafty movement with the ball in hand. Youngs came in high on Parisse, allowing Canna to close the gap to two points through a penalty, before a frantic maul from England came to nothing to end the half.

The Guardian's Robert Kitson liked what he saw during the first half:

The lineout continued to trouble England in the second period, as Dylan Hartley's throw led to an Italian scrum. 

James Haskell was penalised for a crunching tackle while Luke McLean was in the air, but for the first time in the afternoon, Canna missed a penalty, which was a much-needed break for England. Mental errors were starting to creep into the Italians' play, and shortly after, it led to the second try of the match.

Leonardo Sarto threw a dreadful pass in McLean's direction, and Joseph intercepted the ball with ease before cruising over the try line. Sports broadcaster Tony Calvin thought the interception could suck the momentum right out of Italy's game:

His prediction appeared to come true almost immediately after, as Joseph found himself on the end of a stunning kick from Danny Care. Following Farrell's conversion, the score was 25-9 in favour of the visitors.

Suddenly, England looked like an entirely different―and much better―team, and before long, Farrell added to the lead with another penalty. With nine minutes left to play, Joseph completed his hat-trick, dragging three Italians with him as he touched down after some good work from Joe Launchbury. 

Former England captain Will Carling credited the pressure from the forwards for the score:

Farrell again missed the conversion but made up for it with a try of his own, taking the offload from Jamie George before crossing the line untouched. That would be the final score in what ultimately proved to be a one-sided match, handing England some momentum entering Round 3.

England will host winless Ireland at Twickenham on Saturday, Feb. 27, in what will be the team's biggest test so far. The defending champions drew with Wales and lost to France by just a single point in the first two weeks. Italy will chase their first win against Scotland.

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The England rugby union team will open their latest new era on Saturday with a trip to Murrayfield, Scotland, where the result is perhaps more in the balance than it has been for a few years.

England arrive with no one sure of how much new head coach Eddie Jones' philosophy has sunk in since he gathered his squad together for the first time, while hosts Scotland show signs of a team ready to progress from the 2015 Rugby World Cup, where they came within a whisker of a semi-final place.

This could have been a chance for Jones to tear that underachieving English World Cup side to pieces. Instead, the team that was booted out of its own tournament at the earliest opportunity has hardly been changed at all.

Injury to Jonny May means there will be one alteration to the back three that was first choice under former head coach Stuart Lancaster, while the midfield will house players very much of the last era—although in the case of Owen Farrell, his selection at No. 12 was forced on Jones due to injuries to other options.

Jonathan Joseph will start outside him. The Bath man exploded onto the scene during the 2015 RBS Six Nations, but he was injured before he could make an impact in the World Cup. Since then, the name on everyone's lips as far as the No. 13 jersey goes has been Wasps' Elliot Daly.

He has been figuratively banging the door down all season, and yet he was sent back to his club last week and now makes it to Murrayfield only as a reserve. Former Bath and England prop David Flatman was confused, for one:

Danny Care and George Ford, World Cup bit-part players, are there on merit, as is Chris Robshaw, whose form for Harlequins has demanded his inclusion at No. 6, even if Jones no longer sees him as captain material.

Billy Vunipola is retained as first-choice No. 8 when Thomas Waldrom has been the best player in the English league, and newcomer Josh Beaumont has been sent home.

And James Haskell will start in the much-debated No. 7 jersey unless Jack Clifford has convinced Jones otherwise, with the head coach admitting neither is the ideal man for the job, as reported by the Telegraph's Gavin Mairs.

This particular decision is vexing. Why pick a player you don't see as a natural there when you have Dave Ewers and Matt Kvesic at your disposal?

The Gloucester man must feel like the puppy in the pound who is often played with but never taken home. Lancaster used to pick him in his extended squads but then showed him the exit from Pennyhill Park when it came to cull time—Jones has done the same.

This is despite a string of impressive performances for the Cherries this season, characterised by the traits no player Lancaster ever picked in the position possessed.

Jones has decided to go for a short-term fix when he had a chance to assess a potential long-term solution. After all his talk of his love for a natural openside, he has eschewed his only options and gone for a make-do-and-mend solution—the sort of solution he castigated the previous regime for, let's not forget, per his comments in a World Cup column for the Daily Mail.

Steffon Armitage, the dark cloud that never left the airspace above Lancaster's time in charge, questioned the decision in an interview with 888Sport.com (h/t MailOnline): "Kvesic is a really good young player who is coming along nicely and he will be one of those players up there. He deserves a shot at playing in the Six Nations but now he has been released back to his club. He was one of the guys I was looking forward to seeing."

In the second row, it looks like the greater experience of Courtney Lawes and Joe Launchbury will be deployed, with George Kruis as back-up and Maro Itoje another reserve who will only figure if Lawes does not report fully fit by the weekend, having originally been cut.

Lawes and Launchbury are still young and have oodles to offer, but Itoje's rejection was a little saddening.

The Saracens man has been head and shoulders better than Lawes so far this term. Pairing him with Launchbury or his club-mate Kruis would have been a thrilling prospect, but Jones won't take the risk.

It's another choice Armitage doesn't understand: "You have to put these players in when it's their time and you feel with Itoje that he's got there. He's doing it week in, week out for Saracens. Sometimes it's best to throw them into the deep end because otherwise when are you going to do it? This is the perfect time to do it."

What England fans are left with is to hope that in less than three weeks Jones has managed to transform largely the same crop of players who failed so desperately in the autumn into a dynamic outfit capable of playing an entirely different brand of rugby.

The reality is that he has picked a team of low risk (ignoring the captain debate for a moment), preferring to get away with a win ground out through experience rather than blood the new talent at his finger tips and let the chips fall where they may.

Ask yourself this: If England want to get back to being the best, i.e. winning in Japan in 2019, will a good result with a familiar team against Scotland in 2016 be remembered as the defining moment they set out on that path?

Or, had Jones decided to blood four or five players who will be part of the 2019 World Cup picture, risking defeat by inexperience, would that moment of loss be looked upon as more significant, as the moment those men started their journey?

It took a fearful hammering in 1998 by Australia with a scratch England team for Clive Woodward to decide to tear up the playbook and find another way. Not many of those players survived, but Jonny Wilkinson, Phil Vickery and Danny Grewcock all made the 2003 World Cup-winning squad, while Graham Rowntree and Austin Healey only missed it by a whisker. They all played that day.

Jones has already shown that he can't bear the thought of risking a backward step for the sake of future leaps forward, and in that, he may well have missed a trick.

My England XV to face Scotland:

15. Mike Brown

14. Anthony Watson

13. Eliot Daly

12. Owen Farrell

11. Jack Nowell

10. George Ford

9. Danny Care

8. Thomas Waldrom

7. Matt Kvesic

6. Chris Robshaw

5. Maro Itoje

4. Joe Launchbury

3. Kieran Brookes

2. Jamie George

1. Mako Vunipola