Sir Clive Woodward has set high expectations for the England team ahead of their 2019 Guinness Six Nations clash against Italy at Twickenham today..
“Aa an absolute minimum I want England to score six tries on Saturday. Just saying that would wind up Conor O’Shea and the Italians, which is exactly what I would want to be doing.” wrote Woodward in his column for Mail Online.
“I would not worry too much about how England attack or defend — just can they make these figures?
“They have to play quickly and if they do they should be able to put Italy away. England’s attack faltered alarmingly in Cardiff — in the second half, where they scored just three points, I would give their offence a mark of one out of 10 — so it is time to get back on track.
“If I were coach I would go big on this and tell my team: ‘Can anyone in this room really tell me they don’t believe we can score three in both halves?’
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“And I would have said something similar to the press. That would produce headlines telling the Twickenham crowd to expect six tries — and my players would not be surprised to read those headlines as we would have been talking about it all week.”
The World Cup winning coach also wants the home side to dominate in the set piece by winning every scrum.
He continued: “England must win every scrum on their put-in. And on Italy’s ball, England should aim to disrupt 25 per cent. Attack their scrums and make yours perfect.
“Ellis Genge and Kyle Sinckler are fiery types at prop, so will be up for the challenge, Jamie George is a strong hooker and George Kruis and Joe Launchbury are experienced operators in the second row.
“If England