The first of Saturday's Six Nations matches comes from Rome where the rank outsiders of the tournament Italy will host England
Italy v England, Saturday 3rd February, Rome, KO 16:15 (South African time)
Referee: Paul Williams (NZR)
Assistant Referees: Nic Berry (RA), Nika Amashukeli (GRU)
TMO: Brett Cronan (RA)
Weather Forecast: Rome
Italy
Italy faced a tough task in RWC2023, drawn in the same pool as France and New Zealand and they failed to reach the knockout rounds. They were thrashed by both those sides and their 2 wins came against Namibia and Uruguay.
Italy lost all five of the Six Nations matches in 2023 with their best performance seeing them run France close in a Round 1 home fixture (lost 29-24).
Italy's last 6N win came in Wales in the final round of matches in 2022, prior to that their previous 36 matches in this competition had all ended in defeat.
Gonzalo Quesada takes over from Kieren Crowley as coach.
In the outright betting markets with BoyleSports Italy are currently 0.36/1 to finish bottom of the standings and they are 33/10 to finish fifth.
Fixtures & Results: R1 England (h), R2 Ireland (a), R3 France (a), R4 Scotland (h), R5 Wales (a)
England
In RWC 2023 England won all 4 pool matches to top their group ahead of Argentina with Japan, Samoa and Chile filling the minor places. They held off Fiji with some difficulty in the quarter finals and they were in control of the scoreboard for much of their semi final clash with the Springboks but eventually went down 16-15.
In 6 Nations 2023 England trailed in a distant fourth with 2 wins and 3 defeats. The put Italy away at Twickenham and also beat Wales in Cardiff but they were no match for France and Ireland and they also lost their opening match at home to Scotland.
Steve Borthwick continues as coach, Jamie George gets the skippers armband
In the outright betting markets with BoyleSports England are currently 6/1 third favourites to win the title, 9/2 for the Triple Crown and 16/1 to land a Grand Slam. They can also be backed at around 2/1 for a top 2 finish.
Fixtures & Results: R1 Italy (a), R2 Wales (h), R3 Scotland (a), R4 Ireland (h), R5 France (a)
Team News
Italy: 15 Tommaso Allan, 14 Ange Capuozzo, 13 Juan Ignacio Brex, 12 Tommaso Menoncello, 11 Monty Ioane, 10 Paolo Garbisi, 9 Alessandro Garbisi, 8 Lorenzo Cannone, 7 Michele Lamaro (c), 6 Sebastian Negri, 5 Federico Ruzza, 4 Niccolò Cannone, 3 Pietro Ceccarelli, 2 Gianmarco Lucchesi, 1 Danilo Fischetti
Replacements: 16 Giacomo Nicotera, 17 Mirco Spagnolo, 18 Giosuè Zilocchi, 19 Andrea Zambonin, 20 Edoardo Iachizzi, 21 Manuel Zuliani, 22 Stephen Varney, 23 Lorenzo Pani
England: 15 Freddie Steward, 14 Tommy Freeman, 13 Henry Slade, 12 Fraser Dingwall, 11 Elliot Daly, 10 George Ford, 9 Alex Mitchell, 8 Ben Earl, 7 Sam Underhill, 6 Ethan Roots, 5 Ollie Chessum, 4 Maro Itoje, 3 Will Stuart, 2 Jamie George (c), 1 Joe Marler
Replacements: 16 Theo Dan, 17 Ellis Genge, 18 Dan Cole, 19 Alex Coles, 20 Chandler Cunningham-South, 21 Danny Care, 22 Fin Smith, 23 Immanuel Feyi-Waboso
Head to Head (6 Nations Only)
2023 6N Twickenham England 31–14 Italy (Tries 5-2 )
2022 6N Rome Italy 0-33 England (Tries 0-5)
2021 6N Twickenham England 41-18 Italy (Tries 6-2 )
2020 6N Rome Italy 5–34 England (Tries 1-5 )
2019 6N Twickenham England 57–14 Italy (Tries 8-2 )
2018 6N Rome Italy 15–46 England (Tries 2-7 )
2017 6N Twickenham England 36–15 Italy (Tries 5-2 )
2016 6N Rome Italy 9–40 England (Tries 0-5 )
The Betting
Italy +14.5 points at 9/10 widely available
England -14.5 points at 9/10 widely available
Note, odds quoted are correct at the time of writing but are subject to change.
Betting Angle
Conditions look like being good for this game and the closer we get to kick-off the more I can’t shrug this feeling that we are in for a high scoring encounter. On a cautionary note, the last two meetings in Rome have only seen 33 and 39 points scored, but Italy only contributed a total of 5 of those and they certainly possess more attacking weapons these days.
England’s point lines has moved from 31.5 to 32.5, but I am going to respect some of the money that has come for the Italians on the handicap and rather go total points which has come in from 51.5 to 49.5.
BET: 4 Units, Total Points over 49.5 at 9/10 at WSB
Note, odds are correct at the time of writing but are subject to change
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