‘It’s about winning, not crushing Italy’
GRAHAM ROWNTREE insists England are refusing to target anything other than victory over Italy in Rome on Saturday. Stuart Lancaster’s men remain in the hunt for the Six Nations title as the championship heads for a climatic day, but it could all fall short if Ireland beat France due to their vastly superior points difference. Should Ireland win in Paris, England must have prevailed at the Stadio Olimpico by at least 50 points to have any chance of seizing Wales’ crown. Rowntree, however, believes setting out with the ambition of overwhelming Italy with a deluge of tries would be ill-advised. ‘The Italian outfit are a bit like France. They’re not small — they’re big guys and a lot of them are playing in France,’ England’s forwards coach said. ‘Not many teams go over there and push them around and they’ve had moments in this Six Nations. They’re big men. ‘We’ll have to play well on Saturday to beat them and that’s all we’re focusing on, beating them. ‘A lot has been said about the scoreline, but we’re going over there to beat them. ‘There aren’t many teams who have gone over there and smashed Italy. They just don’t let you do that. ‘In the last couple of games against them we’ve scored only one try in the two games. ‘That tells you what they are like. I remember last year — they had a six-two bench, rolled fresh meat on and made it very hard for us. Very hard. ‘We’re going out there to win the game. We’ve not spoken about points difference. Let’s do what we need to do to win the game. Everything else will take care of itself. I mean that.’ England would be playing for the Grand Slam on Saturday had they not allowed Gael Fickou to dance through their defence and seal a 26-24 victory for France in the closing moments of their opener. But it all comes down to what they can do in Rome.