As ever, Italy’s challenge will be led by the brilliant Sergio Parisse, with James Haskell telling the England Rugby Podcast this week that he has been exchanging texts with his former Stade Francais team-mate, but will be putting friendship to one side for 80 minutes on Sunday.
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He has already stated that he does not believe them to be physically fit enough.
“They are proud team playing at home but we are confident going out there”. Now that’s all up here (in the head), it’s got nothing to do with anything else, so that’s the thing we’ve got to get right. It could be a special day in Rome in that regard.
England have promoted Courtney Lawes, Mako Vunipola and Ben Youngs to their starting XV for Sunday’s RBS 6 Nations clash with Italy in Rome. “We want to be absolutely brutal up front so there is no Italian player left standing at the end of the game”, said Jones.
Vunipola says England are benefiting from being allowed to socialise more than under the previous regime run by Stuart Lancaster, when players were told not to drink. So we will have to be ready for it.
It will be a great game and we will go there looking to score tries.
The cavalry includes uncapped tight five duo Maro Itoje and Paul Hill as well as flanker Jack Clifford, who made his debut off the bench a week ago. Jones praised the way Itoje trained in recent days, commenting: “Maro has consistently impressed me this week and, together with his excellent club form, has deserved his call up to the match day squad”.
Forwards Mako Vunipola and Courtney Lawes, along with scrumhalf Ben Youngs, are likely to replace Joe Marler, Joe Launchbury and Danny Care when Jones names his team on Friday.
Jones uses a motoring analogy to describe Itoje’s ability and potential, comparing a Vauxhall Viva with a BMW.
“More than the points I scored or the compliments I received, I’m thinking about the two kicks and the penalty I missed: in my position, that’s unacceptable”.
“We used to have one”. I always remember my father driving a Vauxhall Viva – it’s a very good auto. We want to make the opposition fear us and we want to be disciplined… that’s what we’re aiming for. “I might go seven-one next week”, Jones said. “Maro’s got a good chassis on him, he’s got four wheels, he can move but he’s got a lot of work to do”.
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“This is part of his apprenticeship – some time off the bench, make a bench hopefully and we’ll take it from there”.
