Six Nations 2014: If we get carried away there could be trouble in Rome, warns Robshaw

 
Chris Jones11 March 2014

Chris Robshaw insists England will not become obsessed with scoring as many points as possible against Italy on Saturday as they chase the first Six Nations title of his captaincy.

England clinched the Triple Crown by defeating Wales yesterday but are second to Ireland in the table on points difference, lagging 49 behind Joe Schmidt’s side.

That means England have to hope the Irish either draw or lose to France in Paris and they beat Italy in Rome in the early kick off to become champions.

Ireland beat Italy 46-7 — a 39-point margin — on Saturday and England know a big victory in Rome would put pressure on the Irish.

France still have a slim chance of the title but that rests on their margin of victory being 30 points better than England’s or on Stuart Lancaster’s side losing. Both France and Ireland will know what they have to achieve as England kick off at 12.30pm while the Paris march starts at 5pm.

Robshaw is playing down the advantage that gives France and Ireland and told Standard Sport: “The kick-off times are for television and you just have to crack on. There is no point moaning and we just have to ignore it. Television sends the games all around the world to millions of viewers.

“Instead of going to Rome and just playing for pride we have put ourselves in a position to win the title but we cannot go into a match thinking we have to score 50 points. Italy ran us very close in the last two matches and we have to focus on that match.

“We cannot control anything but our game. The France versus Ireland game will be massive. The French will be hugely motivated while there will be a lot of emotion for Ireland because it is Brian O’Driscoll’s final match.”

With Bath fly-half George Ford becoming the latest new cap after he replaced 19-point Owen Farrell late on yesterday, England are now able to boast at least two players in every position, which will be key to putting together a squad to challenge for next year’s Rugby World Cup.

“There were a lot of questions asked about us all week and there was hype building up to the Wales match for two weeks so for us to deliver with all of that going around shows a lot of maturity and experience within the squad,” said Robshaw.

“The more competition we can have the better and you want two or three players in every position to push each other. Most teams compare themselves with New Zealand and that is what they have got and can rest players and the replacements are outstanding.

“To win the Triple Crown is huge and we are very proud. It’s our first bit of silverware that hasn’t come from a one-off game and it’s something we have in our collection. We said in the week that would be our next step. More importantly, we’ve put ourselves in a good position going into this week’s game. We need a bit of luck in Paris but we’ll look after what we can and get our own performance right.”

Last year England’s Grand Slam hopes ended in a 30-3 thrashing in Cardiff. Yesterday, though, they got off to the perfect start as some quick thinking from Danny Care saw him score a try after four minutes. Luther Burrell added England’s other try half an hour later as he latched onto a clever grubber kick from Billy Twelvetrees.

Robshaw said: “We were embarrassed last year. There’s no hiding from it. And then for them to beat us here the year before and pick up a Triple Crown on our own pitch is hard to take. With the World Cup coming up and us sharing pools it was important for us to get some momentum. Four losses in a row against Wales would have given us a mountain to climb going to Cardiff next season.”

Lancaster hopes France, who only beat Scotland 19-17 at Murrayfield, can rediscover the form that defeated England in Paris at the start of the championship when they take on the Irish. England’s head coach said: “Ireland are a quality side but France on their day at home, with something to play for — who knows?

“But we can’t control that, we’re first up. We’ve got a proud Italian side to play against who gave us a hard time two years ago and gave us a hard time last year at Twickenham. So we’ve got to get our heads right and do what we can do and control the controllables for us.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in