England deputies can exploit Italian limitations

Six Nations championship Injuries give Gloucester winger chance to shine against an Azzurri team who have poor record at Twickenham

It is almost 16 years since John Kirwan, a hulking great brute of an All Black wing, ran through and over and around an entire Italian team to score one of the most celebrated tries in World Cup history. It was some feat, even in a match as one-sided as the 70-6 scoreline made out. The way Kirwan played that day at Eden Park in Auckland – fast, aggressive, a nightmare scenario on muscle-bound legs – the Azzurri could have fielded half a dozen teams simultaneously and still not brought him to earth.

However, Kirwan's try of tries will disappear in a fog of insignificance if he inspires the Italians he now coaches to any kind of result at Twickenham tomorrow. And for the visitors, defeat by less than 20 points would be a result worthy of celebration on a Caligulan scale, for it would confirm two things: that Italy are progressing at a rate of knots and can travel to this autumn's World Cup with realistic ambitions of a quarter-final place, and that they are far from the worst side in the current Six Nations championship.

Had this match been scheduled for the Stadio Flaminio in Rome, against this precise England team, shorn as it is of Robinson and Cohen and Vickery and Johnson and Back... well, who knows? England generally find themselves on the wrong end of a hurry-up in the Eternal City – three years ago, the opening quarter was soaked in blood and mayhem; last season, the odds-on favourites were frustrated for long periods despite winning 45-9 – and given the number of changes forced on Clive Woodward and company, they would not have been wholly comfortable with the prospect of another trial by the likes of Mauro Bergamasco and Alessandro Troncon.

But the game is in London, where the Italians have never succeeded in holding up their end for longer than half an hour, and the absence of Diego Dominguez – an ageing liability in many respects, but still a world-class goal-kicker when the mood takes him – suggests that points will be terribly difficult to come by. And the Azzurri will require at least 20 of them to keep the likely English victory within respectable proportions, for Jonny Wilkinson alone averages 23 a time in these fixtures.

Few coaches tell it like it is before a Test these days, even when they know they should win by plenty, and Woodward was predictably cautious when he assessed the prospects after Thursday's training run in Surrey. "A cricket score? Those days have gone," insisted the England manager. "Italy are always among the most physical teams we come up against, and they are far better coached now than they were the last time we played them. They play much faster; they tap and go, they take you on in a quick, direct fashion. Under Brad Johnstone [Kirwan's countryman and predecessor] they were pretty static – it was almost as if they tried to run down the clock before kick-off. This side is much more of a challenge."

All the same, England can afford to make nine changes from the side that won a stop-start game in Wales a fortnight ago and still consider themselves a league above their opponents. Graham Rowntree and Robbie Morris will have to sweat to subdue Giampiero de Carli and Ramiro Martinez in the front row, and the Italian breakaway unit of Andrea de Rossi, Aaron Persico and the naturalised New Zealander Matthew Phillips is so effective that they can gamble on playing Bergamasco, an open-side flanker to die for, on the right wing. Elsewhere, though, it is difficult to imagine the visitors coping for long.

As Woodward openly admitted this week that he no longer had a clear idea of his optimum XV – "I'm getting confused as to who my best players are," he laughed – this is a significant opportunity for those who wish to muddy the manager's mental waters still further. Josh Lewsey, most put out by his repeated failures to establish himself in the senior squad, could use a big performance at full-back; James Simpson-Daniel is one super-charged display away from cementing his position in the match-day 22; and if Danny Grewcock and Joe Worsley get it right in the back five, Ben Kay and Neil Back will spend the next few weeks looking over their shoulders.

Most importantly, though, Woodward will be peering hard at the position he filled as an England player two decades and more ago: outside centre. It is the fly in the red rose ointment, the obvious flaw in England's philosophy, and unless Mike Tindall, the effective but limited Bath three-quarter, brings something extra to the party, question-marks will remain, irrespective of the scale of victory.