England keep eye on Six Nations title after trouncing Italy

London — A dominant England scored seven tries to crush Italy 47-24 at a sun-drenched Twickenham in a chaotic match on Sunday and maintain their outside hopes of winning the Six Nations championship.

A loose first half included a succession of eye-catching tries — Tom Willis, Tommy Freeman and Ollie Sleightholme for England and Ange Capuozzo and Ross Vintcent for Italy — as the hosts turned around 21-17 ahead having made nearly all the running but being exposed defensively.

It was almost all one-way traffic in the second half, however, as Marcus Smith, Tom Curry, Sleightholme and Ben Earl crossed and flyhalf Fin Smith landed six of his seven conversion attempts, most from near the touchline.

England travel to Cardiff on Saturday with the chance to win four games in the championship for the first time since lifting the title in 2020, but even a bonus-point victory is unlikely to be enough to finish top of the table this time.

After their impressive win in Dublin on Saturday France lead the way on 16 points, England have 15 and Ireland 14.

France’s huge points difference of plus-106 means that any sort of victory in their final game against Scotland in Paris will almost certainly secure the honours. England can get to 20 points with a bonus-point victory in Cardiff and would then need the Scots to do them a favour.

Ireland will expect to win in Italy and can get to 19 with a bonus-point but their hopes of an unprecedented third successive title look extremely slim.

Reuters