Danny drops England in it - whizzkid’s slip leaves team clinging on

Jonny Wilkinson had no sooner averted one crisis at fly half than his early withdrawal pre-empted another, leaving young pretender Danny Cipriani time to catch the most contagious of defensive diseases, the charge-down kick otherwise known as the own goal.

England, for all all their confusion, are nothing if not consistent.

On the fly half issue, they will be the wiser for Wilkinson responding to the heat on his position with a Mark Twain of a performance — that reports of his international demise are greatly exaggerated.

It was not so much because he became only the second man to score 1,000 points for his country but because he created the try which, ultimately, made all the difference.

Cipriani will be the wiser, too, for discovering the hard way that this fly half lark is not as simple as he often makes it look, especially given the team's capacity to self-destruct.

Unlike the own goal Iain Balshaw donated to Wales at Twickenham eight days earlier, England held on after Cipriani's, but not before it raised fleeting hopes among the Italians of snatching their most sensational rugby victory of all.

England didn't quite replicate the six minutes of madness against Wales but they went far closer to it than even the Azzurri could ever have imagined.

Simon Picone could hardly believe his luck at watching Cipriani's attempted chip fall so invitingly for the substitute scrum half that he grabbed it on the second bounce without checking his stride to touch down beside the posts.

Where they had been a rudderless ship breaking on the Welsh rocks the previous week, at least this time England found some leadership to guide them through the storm.

Steve Borthwick, named captain only after Phil Vickery had been counted out shortly after breakfast, is as good a reason as any why the world's most populous rugby country held on.

It has taken the Cumbrian a long time to become a second row of Test stature. Thankfully for England, he made it yesterday, never more so than when stealing an Italian throw almost on his own try-line during an increasingly fraught final quarter.

France loom uncomfortably on the horizon in Paris at the end of next week. After a 50-minute performance at Twickenham and barely 40 minutes here, what next?

Ashton claimed the real England would stand up here, and that in doing so they would not waste Lesley Vainikolo. Like a lot of other things, that never happened but it could have been worse.

Imagine how history would have judged his substitution of Cipriani for Wilkinson in the 67th minute had England lost. "I know what you're going to say — what a great substitution that was,' Ashton said. 'He had a kick charged down but it was always my intention to give Danny some game time."

Wilkinson had never been subbed, at least not for tactical reasons, in the eight years since he kicked his first Test goal, against Scotland at Twickenham eight years ago.

By the time he landed the 371st to reach the four-figure milestone from the second of two touchline conversions, Wilkinson had already engineered England into a winning position.

It took him less than three minutes to provide the perfect riposte to those who contend he is on borrowed time.

When Michael Lipman plucked an overthrown Italian lob from the tail of a line-out, Wilkinson chipped delicately into space, gathered on the second bounce and then eased a one-handed pass out of the tackle so expertly that all Paul Sackey had to do was click through the gears for the opening try.

The second try, in the 16th minute, was an all-Newcastle production.

Jamie Noon charged down a clearance and flicked to Wilkinson who waited for the third Newcastle back, Toby Flood, to take the scenic route to the corner and touch down with a one-handed dive. Apart from two Wilkinson penalties, that was about as good as it got.

Unable to win enough ball to extricate themselves from a mess largely of their own making, England went from bad to worse as if hell-bent on repeating the Welsh experience. From leading 20-6, they let the Italians chip away with two penalties before the charge-down try had alarm bells ringing.

They will go on ringing, and rightly so, if England can't do any better than this