England’s man-of-the-match in the Six Nations opener.
A huge thanks goes out to the South African coach of Italy who with one masterstroke handed victory to England in their opening fixture of the Six Nations. Thus keeping up England’s record of never having lost to the newest additions to the old tournament and on that showing probably giving Martin Johnson’s side their only victory in this years competition.
It wasn’t just the inspired choice by Mallet to pick, the usually outstanding flanker, Mauro Bergamasco as his scrum half, it was sticking by the decision throughout the first half while it went from bad to worse. By not realising this wasn’t going to get any better and making a change early it handed England enough points that they could be as inept as they wanted in the second half without too much fear.
Mauro Bergamasco’s performance is probably the worst I have seen by an international player in decades. Jonathan Davies
On the plus side for the player his name is now part of the lexicon of rugby, any horrendous, preferably head high, hospital pass is now automatically a “Bergamasco”.
Post match the England captain showed yet again why he probably shouldn’t hold that position…
I thought it was a great start. Five tries to one and we did a lot of good things Steve Borthwick
Those good things, was that committing stupid fouls and getting sin binned, or was it being insipid for most of the match, was it the slow ball, the aimless running, or the aimless kicking, enlighten us Steve, go on.
It just isn’t getting any better for English rugby at international level and if the players think that was good then it won’t get any better soon, no matter what Martin Johnson thinks or says.
Of course all that could also be said about the complete shambles that is calling it self the England cricket team out in the West Indies. If you are 51 all out and losing by an innings to the worst Windies team in living memory what chances the Ashes?