{"id":318192,"date":"2026-03-07T21:06:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T21:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/318192\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T21:06:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T21:06:07","slug":"italy-stun-england-for-first-time-in-six-nations-boilover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/318192\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy stun England for first time in Six Nations boilover"},"content":{"rendered":"

When England thrashed Wales 48-7 in their tournament opener, they were on a 12-match winning run that included beating New Zealand in November<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They have now lost their last three.<\/p>\n

If Italy beat Wales in Cardiff next weekend, it would be the first time in a Six Nations that they have won three matches, and they could yet finish third, which would be their best final position.<\/p>\n

England dominated possession in the first quarter of an hour but once Italy got the ball in their hands, they immediately looked dangerous and ate up ground.<\/p>\n

Garbisi kicked them into a three-point lead on 21 minutes after England gave away a sloppy penalty for offside at their own line-out.<\/p>\n

But England had the edge over the feared Italian scrum early on, winning two penalties.<\/p>\n

The second one set up England to work an overlap on the left and lock Alex Coles passed to centre Freeman to score the first try of the match.<\/p>\n

But Italy were soon back in front after Menoncello ran a superb line to burst between two lumbering England forwards and streak clear for a converted try.<\/p>\n

After the Scotland-France try-fest earlier in the day at Murrayfield<\/a>, this match was one for the purists, but it was tense throughout.<\/p>\n

With time ticking down at the end of the first half, Italy turned over the ball and England attacked with verve against a disorganised defence before Finn Smith found Roebuck with a cross-kick to score.<\/p>\n

Smith kicked the conversion and the visitors led 12-10 at the break.<\/p>\n

Italy were guilty of over-playing the ball at the start of the second half and Smith stretched England\u2019s lead with two penalties, while Nicotera was sent to the sin-bin for a cynical infringement.<\/p>\n

Just a few minutes later, though, flanker Underhill, who was only in the starting XV because Tom Curry was injured in the warm-up, was given a yellow card for a high shot that survived a bunker review.<\/p>\n

Garbisi kicked the penalty and the momentum shifted to the hosts.<\/p>\n

The No 10 knocked another penalty in off the post and England\u2019s lead was 18-16 with 20 minutes left.<\/p>\n

England\u2019s discipline deserted them and Itoje was next to be sent to the bin as the penalties racked up, with Garbisi kicking to the corner this time as Italy had a two-man advantage for a few minutes.<\/p>\n

But England managed to drag Italy\u2019s catch-and-drive into touch to survive.<\/p>\n

But before Itoje could rejoin the action, Italy struck with a brilliant break down the left as Menoncello fed Marin to score the history-making try.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When England thrashed Wales 48-7 in their tournament opener, they were on a 12-match winning run that included…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[172275,172270,1634,6440,1888,2082,71,6637,6628,78,1224,28317,172273,172272,172274,17154,111,43,139,69,1523,1534,4739,90461,37137,8731,2044,172271,23838,8982],"class_list":["post-318192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-172275","tag-boilover","tag-england","tag-ever","tag-first","tag-for","tag-from","tag-gave","tag-historic","tag-in","tag-italy","tag-leonardo","tag-marin","tag-menoncello","tag-muchchanged","tag-nations","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-saturday","tag-six","tag-stun","tag-tense","tag-thriller","tag-time","tag-tommaso","tag-tries","tag-victory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}