{"id":9959,"date":"2026-03-07T07:55:57","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T07:55:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=9959"},"modified":"2026-03-07T07:55:57","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T07:55:57","slug":"six-nations-2026-englands-away-day-blues-could-they-finally-lose-to-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=9959","title":{"rendered":"Six Nations 2026: England&#8217;s away-day blues &#8211; could they finally lose to Italy?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">England entered round two on a run of 12 successive wins and yet the setbacks against Ireland and Scotland were of a team suddenly unsure of their identity. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Chaotic starts. Scrambled gameplans. Individual mistakes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The suggestion that England kick too much is synonymous with Borthwick&#8217;s threeyear reign although moving away from a kick-based strategy has had adverse consequences in recent weeks. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">According to Opta data, England ranked second bottom for kicks in play (44) and bottom for kick metres (1,025m) across the past two rounds and suffered convincing defeats in both.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">An attack that was only outscored by South Africa last year has malfunctioned, conceding 16 turnovers at crucial times in the opposition 22, along with 32 turnovers because of unforced errors. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But perhaps the biggest failings on England&#8217;s rap sheet have been those of a ragged defence. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Borthwick&#8217;s men have conceded 24 line-breaks so far, with 58% of those coming in the 10m channels. An unrivalled 30% of their 74 missed tackles have also come out wide.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The secret is out &#8211; to beat England, play fast and play with width, a blueprint that Monye believes Italy are capable of replicating. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Italy have the opportunity to threaten England, because it would seem that against teams that love to play wide England, at the moment, don&#8217;t have an antidote against that,&#8221; he said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Italy have really developed and the teams that like to express themselves and play a wide game can really get after England.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>England entered round two on a run of 12 successive wins and yet the setbacks against Ireland and Scotland were of a team suddenly unsure of their identity. Chaotic starts. Scrambled gameplans. Individual mistakes. The suggestion that England kick too much is synonymous with Borthwick&#8217;s threeyear reign although moving away from a kick-based strategy has<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}