Promising England must capitalise on vital break

You make your own luck in this game and if Italy captain Sergio Parisse thinks England are a poor side, then let's just remember we gifted Italy two tries and were still good enough to battle back in front of a passionate crowd who were willing the Azzurri on to a first ever win over the English. If I was Parisse I'd be more concerned about his team who are 0-2 and staring down the barrel to another wooden spoon.

That was the best opportunity Italy had to register a landmark victory and even the awful weather was in their favour.

Special mention must go to Owen Farrell, who is only 20, but stepped up to take those penalties with a huge amount of self belief and he wasn't even affected by a heavy blow to his left eyebrow that needed stitches and a large bandage. He didn't look timid, nervous or phased at all.

We know England are a work in progress and it's a fact that the more time they spend together, both in training and in Test matches, the better they will get and that is why this break between championship games is going to be so important.

There were some issues at the line‑out and with our attacking play but you have to recognise that England had a totally disrupted training week due to the weather and it may be time to look at building our own indoor facility - something they have in Wales - which would minimise the kind of problems the players had leading into the match.

The line-out comes down to timing and to get that right you need lots of practice. While it is very repetitive, that is how you get the lifting right and the timing of the jump spot on. The coaches will be looking to eradicate those mistakes in training this week.

The England scrum went really well and we put some very good passages of play together in the second half which is very encouraging and every one of the replacements made an impact when they came on, including London Wasps Rob Webber, who won a deserved first cap at hooker.

I am sure Scotland and Italy are looking back on their matches with England and believe they should have won but they didn't despite having probably two or even three times the number of caps.

England have made progress and the big challenge for the squad is to raise their level again to take on a Wales side, who showed their attacking flair in the backs defeating Scotland yesterday having already narrowly beaten Ireland.

After facing Wales we have to take on France away and Ireland at home and those are all huge fixtures but if you had offered me - before a ball was kicked in anger - that we could have two wins from two away games at this stage of the championship, I would have bitten your hand off.

It is the first time we have done that since 2004.
The England management know this team have yet to peak but too many people are forgetting just how new so many of the players are to the international stage.

There are England players who have only won a couple of caps and yet they have beaten some of the best players in the championship and now they get the chance to play at Twickenham for the first time in their Test careers.

We are also in the healthy position of having guys like Toby Flood , Manu Tuilagi and Courtney Lawes now available for selection, Ben Morgan is pushing really hard for a start at No8 while Lee Dickson is pressing Ben Youngs at scrum-half.

Head coach Stuart Lancaster has quickly created the mentality that you have to earn the right to get into what is now an unbeaten England team in the Six Nations as there is no divine right to walk back into the side.

Great teams don't just arrive overnight and it took us seven years to get to the stage where we won the 2003 Rugby World Cup in Australia and we had some difficult times to deal with along the way.

It hasn't been champagne rugby so far but we have two wins and plenty of potential and I am looking forward to seeing how they deal with Wales.

I also want to pay tribute to the marvellous work the ground staff did at the Stadio Olimpico, moving all that snow and making sure the game could be played and it is a real shame that the France game with Ireland had to be called off due to a hard pitch.

Jason Leonard and the Evening Standard are supporting RBS RugbyForce, the community rugby programme that is improving club facilities across the nation. To find out more or register your rugby club for the RBS RugbyForce weekend on June 2/3, visit www.rbs.com/rugbyforce