England's wounded soldiers head to Italy this weekend hoping to put Saturday's nightmare start to the Six Nations behind them.
Ashton has made a number of enforced changes to his pack, including bringing in Michael Lipman to start at open-side flanker in place of Lewis Moody, with Tim Payne also being brought into the match-day 22 due to an injury to the influential Andrew Sheridan. Despite suffering significant criticism for his performance against Wales, Jonny Wilkinson will keep his place at fly-half ahead of the young Danny Cipriani.
After the over-achievements in last year's World Cup, English fans' expectations of hammering our Welsh neighbours were sent crashing back to earth after enduring a dismal second half collapse at Twickenham.
Heart and desire were sadly two of the qualities that deserted England during a disappointing second half of madness. A far cry from England's heroic World Cup victory against Australia, the English lions were made to look like lambs.
New Wales Coach Warren Gatland deserves a great deal of credit for his team's monumental triumph in the face of adversity. With England leading 19-6, only the most optimistic of Welsh travelling support would have predicted anything other than a crushing English victory. However, Wales displayed the courage to fight back and record their first victory at Twickenham for 20 years.
England Coach Brian Ashton will be afforded one loss during this Six Nations Tournament, but anything other than any emphatic English victory on Sunday will surely lead to his position becoming increasingly untennable.
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3 comments:
I agree Paul. Anything other than a comfortable England victory against Italy could leave Ashton 'under pressure'!
Quite a convincing win for England against the Italians in the end however the lesson in how to play Rugby by the Welsh will still linger in the minds of all the players throughout the rest of the tournament. Let’s hope Johnny doesn't have any more sleepless nights. Good blog.
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