Winger
Chris Ashton ran in four of England's eight tries as Martin
Johnson's team thrashed Italy 59-13 at Twickenham on
Saturday.
The
Northampton flyer became the first player since Ronald
Poulton in 1914 to score four tries in a Championship match,
and has already equalled the individual tournament record of
six tries in one season.
The
free-scoring winger even indulged his passion for the
'swallow dive' celebration, although it's hard to mark a man
down after such a bravura performance.
Ashton
set England on their way with this opening effort after just
three minutes, adding another before the break and then a
further brace in the second period. He was backed up in the
try stakes by scores from Mark Cueto - his first for England
in 19 matches - Mike Tindall, Danny Care and James Haskell.
Fly-half
Toby Flood kicked five conversions and an early penalty,
while his second-half replacement Jonny Wilkinson landed
three conversions of his own as resurgent England romped
home.
Italy
did manage a try of their own when substitute hooker Fabio
Ongaro touched down 10 minutes from time, while Stade
Francais winger Mirco Bergamasco kicked two penalties and a
conversion.
But
there was no doubting that it was Ashton's afternoon as the
23-year-old former rugby league player followed up superbly
on his away-day brace against Wales in England's opening Six
Nations match last weekend.
Johnson
admitted he was "very pleased" by his team's second
successive win, but warned that England still had grounds
for improvement ahead of their clash with defending
champions France.
"We can
look at what we have done well and what we need to be better
at," said the England manager.
"We won't get the same amount of
opportunities to score - that won't happen - so when the
chances are there you need to take them. We should make it
difficult for Italy when they come to Twickenham, and I'm
very pleased.
"For
about 20 minutes we did a lot of good things, had
try-scoring chances and didn't take them. But we kept on
executing and got away from them, which is what you want.
We're not used to having big leads and hopefully it's a
problem we can get used to. We got the tempo into the game
and got some fatigue in them pretty quickly, but did I think
we would get many? Probably not," added Johnson.
England
wing Cueto was clearly relieved afterwards at having ended
his barren spell without a try, but his thoughts were more
towards the likely change in attitude of future opponents
towards Chris Ashton.
"Whenever you do your analysis on the teams you come up
against you pick out the threats and without a shadow of a
doubt teams will be looking at 'Ashy'. He has scored six
tries in two games and is the out-and-out threat with
England at the minute, so he will be put under a lot of
pressure," said the Sale Sharks winger.
Ashton's
rugby league upbringing may have something to do with his
current success, and Cueto said there was far more to the
man than just sheer pace. "There is an art to what he does
and it is unbelievable. He just anticipates everything,"
added Cueto.
As for
his own form, Cueto reckoned it is "as good as it has ever
been", adding that he felt "brilliant every time I go out
there and play".
