Lancaster wants 'squad competition'
Stuart Lancaster wants to create competition for places in the England team following their second straight hard-fought Six Nations match on the road.
England will host Wales in just under two weeks time boosted by a pair of tough wins at difficult places to get a result.
Italy gave England a scare at the Stadio Olimpico on Saturday before going down 15-19, their joint best result against the English, whom they have yet to beat.
That followed hot on the heels of a 13-6 win over Scotland at Murrayfield for Lancaster’s men and the interim coach is happy with how things are going.
“Obviously our first initial thoughts are we’re delighted to get the win,” he said.
“We put ourselves in a [good] position in the first 20 minutes. I thought we started well then there was a bit of a mad five minutes and we came in down at the half.
“The most pleasing thing from that point of view was that there was no sense of panic.
“We felt there were one or two areas that we needed to work on, in particular getting balls in the number 10’s hands early and getting more tempo into the game.
“I’m pleased we managed to do that and in the second half I’m delighted with the impact our substitutes made.
“It’s a great win for us, it was tough, Italy played extremely well and put us under huge pressure.
“They made lots of passes, it was very difficult conditions for the players but overall I’m pleased to get the win and we look forward to go to Twickenham in two weeks time.”
Italy dominated the first half against a disjointed England, even though the visitors more or less gifted their hosts two late tries and a 12-6 half-time lead.
But the introduction of scrumhalf Lee Dickson and number eight Ben Morgan with just under a half hour left helped turn the game around.
Owen Farrell was also immaculate with his place kicking and with centre Manu Tuilagi and lock Courtney Lawes due to come back into the squad, Lancaster believes things are looking good.
“Italy missed a couple [of kicks] but from our point of view we felt that Owen was fantastic in terms of temperament and the ability to step up and get those kicks to keep our scoreboard ticking over,” said the coach.
“Even though the conditions were difficult we had to be brave to be able to play.
“Both Dickson and Morgan made a fantastic impact and gave us our best period of the game.
“We’ve got some players who put their hands up and that’s part of what we’ll be considering as well as how they contribute and how they train.
“But Manu Tuilagi and Courtney Lawes played this weekend (for their clubs) as well, they’re good internationals and are playing for [a place].”
Charlie Hodgson helped turn the game around by charging down an Andrea Masi clearing kick on 51 minutes before picking up the loose ball to score a try – in identical fashion to the one he got against Scotland the week before.
And forwards coach Andy Farrell, a former England international and Owen’s father, said even that is something the team works on.
“Of course we work on it, we spend hours and hours at the beginning of each week looking at kicking techniques,” he said.
“With our defence we want to extend it to putting pressure on the opposition kicking game.
“We’re constantly trying to put pressure on every time someone’s kicking, whether it’s the nine or 10.
“We work on that extra detail and fight to put the opposition under pressure and sometimes we come out with rewards.”
AFP
