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England marches toward Grand Slam

Six Nations table *England 3 3 0 0 91 31 6 *Ireland 3 3 0 0 88 31 6 *France 3 1 0 2 67 43 2 *Italy 3 1 0 2 48 99 2 *Scotland 3 1 0 2 39 96 2 *Wales 3 0 0 3 53 86 0 Source: Reuters

Powered by five tries in the first 22 minutes, England romped to a 40-5 victory over Italy on Sunday to stay on course for a Six Nations Grand Slam.

Yet Clive Woodward's team virtually stopped attacking and spent much of the game at Twickenham on defense against a hardworking Italian lineup who halted the onslaught for 50 minutes and were unlucky not to score more than one try.

In a rare penalty-free game, Josh Lewsey scored two tries on his Six Nations debut and front row Steve Thompson, center Mike Tindall and wingers James Simpson-Daniel and Dan Luger all crossed the Italian line as England won for the third game in a row in the competition.

The lone Italian score came from 20-year-old fullback Mirco Bergamasco early in the second half by which time his team was already 33-0 behind.

``It's a very quiet dressing room which always sums up the performance with a lot of frustrations,'' Woodward said. ``But we were fantastic for 25 to 30 minutes and then, for reasons I have to go away and clearly think about, we just took our foot off the pedal.

``We couldn't get the ball off the Italians and they played very well. But we just got a bit sloppy.

``The positives outweigh the negatives but we need to up probably more than one of two gears if we're really going to move on this year to what we're trying to do.''

Already missing star kicker Diego Dominguez, Italy suffered another blow when Mauro Bergamasco, Mirco's older brother, was ruled out just minutes before the game with a thigh injury. Nicola Mazzucato took over on the wing.

England romped into a five-try, 33-0 lead inside the first 22 minutes before going another 50 without a single score.

The Italians were pulled apart by some textbook rugby in the second minute for fullback Lewsey to cross the line for his sixth try in England colors but debut score in the Six Nations.

After scrum half Matt Dawson was halted just short of the line, front row Thompson collected the ball from the ruck and charged over for the second in the 11th minute.

Two minutes later, Italy conceded possession in midfield and England sent the ball through five pairs of hands to the overlapping Simpson-Daniel for his first England try.

Then Lewsey darted through a gap in the Italian defense to sprint 40 meters, weaving past Mirco Bergamasco for his second try.

The fifth try came when Dawson broke from a scrum and passed outside to Simpson-Daniel. The winger slipped ball inside for Tindall to brush through some weak tackling for the score.

Jonny Wilkinson, who had converted the first four tries, pulled the difficult conversion attempt wide but England was in total control.
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