Ashton defends England show

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Early tries by wing Paul Sackey and centre Toby Flood, as well as fly-half Jonny Wilkinson kicking 13 points to pass the 1,000-point mark, allowed England to secure their first RBS 6 Nations triumph of the campaign - although they saw their 20-6 interval lead rapidly diminish.

"We are quite happy to go away with the victory, even if we wanted to win by a better result," said Ashton.

"Italy is not an easy place to play rugby. But at least we were able to get on the Six Nations scoreboard. I didn't fear we were going to lose," he added.

"At no stage was I on the sidelines thinking, 'Jesus Christ, we are going to throw this away'. We finished the game on the Italian line. We learned from last weekend that games end in the 80th minute."

Ashton saw no similarities between last weekend's defeat by Wales at Twickenham and their clash against the Italians at the Flaminio Stadium. England blew a 19-6 lead against Wales last weekend to lose by seven points.

"I didn't feel like we watched the same game," he said. "I think the Italian forwards stepped up their game at half-time and what we could not do was to establish field position and that is worrying."

Ashton praised Wilkinson on reaching a milestone and explained the reason he substituted the Newcastle fly-half shortly after the hour mark.

"He broke the Six Nations record," said Ashton. "He set up the first try and he did better than against Wales.

"It was always my intention to give Danny Cipriani some playing time and I know what you are going to say, 'what a great substitution considering Cipriani's kick was shut down' (in what led to Italy's only try of the game). But Cipriani has a lot of talent and has a long and successful international career in front of him."