England hammer Italy 47 24 to stay in Six Nations title hunt

LONDON - A dominant England scored seven tries to crush Italy 47-24 at a sun-drenched Twickenham in a chaotic match on Sunday and maintain their outside hopes of winning the Six Nations championship.

First-half tries by Tom Willis, Tommy Freeman and Ollie Sleightholme had them 21-17 up at halftime and Marcus Smith, Tom Curry, Sleightholme and Ben Earl crossed in the second, with flyhalf Fin Smith landing six of his seven conversion attempts.

Italy showed much more spirit than in their 73-24 humbling by France two weeks ago and scored three excellent tries but never really threatened England making it 32 wins out of 32 in the fixture.

England travel to Cardiff next Saturday with the chance to win four games in the championship for the first time since lifting the title in 2020, but even a bonus-point victory is unlikely to be enough to finish top of the table this time.

After their impressive win in Dublin on Saturday France lead the way on 16 points, England have 15 and Ireland 14.

France’s huge points difference of plus-106 to Englands plus-20 means that any sort of victory in their final game against Scotland in Paris will almost certainly secure the honours. England can get to 20 points with a bonus-point victory in Cardiff and would then need the Scots to do them a favour.

Ireland will expect to win in Italy and can get to 19 with a bonus-point but their hopes of a third successive title look extremely slim.

We wanted to free ourselves up and put some scores on the board, said man of the match lock Ollie Chessum. We always want to score points but have found that difficult in the last couple of games. The coaches allowed us to be free.

We just have to