Actually England's second half was a little disappointing. I'd prefer to see more running with ball in hand rather than too much kicking and giving away possession. England should not have been afraid to run at the Italians and it does not fill me with confidence for when we come up against the likes of Ireland and France. The positive was the defence which despite prolonged periods of pressure in the second half kept Italy off the scoreboard.
Having played on bone dry and rock hard pitches (due more to frost than hot weather) I can't see teams travelling to play games in the South African summer. Rugby is a winter sport and the only way I could see it working is if SA played all their games in Europe which would either mean flying back and forth 5 times over the course of 6 weeks or staying in Europe for the duration. I think we are stuck with Italy for some time to come unless we admit the experiment has failed and go back to the 5 Nations Championships. It's 7 years now since Italy has won a game and no other European team seems able to move from tier 2 to tier 1 rugby.
I bailed when the beatdown got to 21-0 - at that point it was pretty clear Italy was hopeless. I'm guessing your boys were being merciful and saving their energy for Wales. From what I saw in the first half the final score could have been a lot uglier than 33-0.
