England's early roar fades away to a whimper

England 40 Italy 5

The second-half streaker received a standing ovation, which was entirely appropriate given the Emperor's New Clothes quality of England's victory over Italy here yesterday afternoon. There was the usual flannel from the management in the immediate aftermath of a 20th straight Test win on home soil – Josh Lewsey was terrific in the early stages, Ollie Smith showed the best of himself on his debut, Mike Tindall delivered in spades at outside centre – but the real story was written all over Clive Woodward's face as he viewed proceedings from his grandstand seat. Happy, he was not.

England scored within 90 seconds of the kick-off and rattled along at almost two points a minute for the first quarter of an hour. After 21 minutes, they were 33-0 up. And that was the last anyone saw of them until the fag-end of the match when Smith, youthful enthusiasm made flesh, performed some smart jiggery-pokery in midfield to create a sixth try for Dan Luger, who had suffered so many indignities at the hands of a cussed Italian defence that he must have been in an advanced state of embarrassment as he crossed the line.

It was not as if the Six Nations favourites spent the best part of the final hour battering away at the Azzurri barricades, only to be frustrated by the quality of the tackling. The Italians made their fair share of big hits, to be sure, but the five busiest tacklers were all Englishmen. No, the home side disappeared because they could not lay a hand on the ball for alarming periods of time, and were forced to accept starvation rations by a team of underdogs who did far more than snap at the heels of their masters.

Had the Italians possessed any sort of cutting edge, they would have finished within 15 points of their opponents and would now be celebrating the freedom of Rome.

Giovanni Raineri mixed it with Will Greenwood in the heavy traffic and stayed with the celebrated Harlequin from first minute to last; Giampiero de Carli, that great blue-shirted ox of a prop from the vibrant Calvisano club, stood up to be counted at scrum and maul; Alessandro Troncon played a captain's knock at scrum-half, repeatedly asking questions of the English loose forwards around the fringes; and Aaron Persico, the frizzy-haired flanker from Viadana, reduced Richard Hill to bit-part status – a significant feat in anyone's language. It would certainly take a brave man to poke fun at Persico's perm.

There was no sign of any Italian uprising in the opening exchanges, assuming you can have an exchange when only one side has turned up. Jonny Wilkinson, captain for the day, felt sufficiently positive about life to spurn penalties immediately, and as a result, England were points up almost before the conclusion of the anthems. Both Luger and James Simpson-Daniel slipped off their wings to create a slick try for Lewsey, and when Wilkinson rejected another kick at the sticks nine minutes in, a clever line-out routine featuring Ben Kay and Lawrence Dallaglio paved the way for Steve Thompson's close-range finish.

More to come? Yes, and plenty of it. Simpson-Daniel maximised a big overlap going right following a rare error from Persico in midfield, and when Lewsey, running the kind of orthodox angles from full-back that remain a complete mystery to the more stylised Jason Robinson, performed a circumnavigation of his opposite number, Mirco Bergamasco, to score from the best part of 70 metres, the Twickenham faithful were expecting an 80-pointer. Lewsey then played a central role in Tindall's crashing try at the start of the second quarter, which prompted some folk to think in terms of three figures.

Yet once the Italians calmed themselves and caught up with the pace of the proceedings – once they understood the basic truth that against England here, a single missed tackle was one more than they could afford – the mood of the match changed. They reached the break without further trauma (indeed, they might have scored tries of their own through Persico and Bergamasco) and when they gave themselves some line-out options by introducing the exceptional Marco Bortolami early in the second half, they controlled possession to a degree above and beyond anything achieved by a side visiting London since Nick Mallett's Springboks in 1997.

Finally, after what seemed an age, they made their mark when they spun the ball along the back-line and saw Bergamasco, younger brother of the talismanic Mauro, who had pulled out of the game with a thigh injury, take Paulo Vaccari's subtle pass and cross in the right corner. They might have built on that score, but for the injuries that forced both Vaccari and Troncon from the field in the closing stages.

England had a casualty list of their own: Wilkinson appeared to damage a shoulder when he mis-timed a tackle on the bullocking Andrea de Rossi, while Charlie Hodgson lasted only six minutes as his replacement before retiring with a wrenched knee. The idea of switching Lewsey to outside-half did not occur to the management, even though the Wasp was running hotter than any of his colleagues and had Test experience in the position; instead, Greenwood was moved inside, to little effect. Maybe Woodward, who spent much of the second half with his head in his hands, was past caring.

England 40
Tries: Lewsey 2, Thompson, Simpson-Daniel, Tindall, Luger
Cons: Wilkinson 4, Dawson

Italy 5
Try: Mirco Bergamasco

Half-time: 33-0 Att: 76,000

ENGLAND: J Lewsey (Wasps); J Simpson-Daniel (Gloucester), M Tindall (Bath), W Greenwood (Harlequins), D Luger (Harlequins); J Wilkinson (Newcastle, capt), M Dawson (Northampton); G Rowntree (Leicester), S Thompson (Northampton), R Morris (Northampton), D Grewcock (Bath), B Kay (Leicester), J Worsley (Wasps), R Hill (Saracens), L Dallaglio (Wasps). Replacements: C Hodgson (Sale) for Wilkinson 47; O Smith (Leicester) for Hodgson 53; S Shaw (Wasps) for Kay 58; M Worsley (London Irish) for Morris 59; M Regan (Leeds) for Thompson 64; A Sanderson (Sale) for Hill 64; K Bracken (Saracens) for Lewsey 71.

ITALY: Mirco Bergamasco (Padova); N Mazzucato (Treviso), P Vaccari (Calvisano), G Raineri (Calvisano), D Dallan (Treviso); R Pez (Rotherham), A Troncon (Treviso, capt); G De Carli (Calvisano), C Festuccia (Gran Parma), R Martinez (Treviso), C Bezzi (Viadana), M Giacheri (Rotherham), A De Rossi (Calvisano), A Persico (Viadana), M Phillips (Viadana). Replacements: A Masi (L'Aquila) for Dallan 16; M Bortolami (Padova) for Giacheri 47; L Castrogiovanni (Calvisano) for De Carli 49; G Peens (Rugby Parma) for Vaccari 65; M Mazzantini (Rovigo) for Troncon 68; S Palmer (Treviso) for Phillips 71; F Ongaro (Treviso) for Festuccia 74.

Referee: A Rolland (Ireland).