They seem to be following in Eddie Jones’ footsteps.
Look, this England side are a good team.
You don’t go on a 17 Test match winning streak unless this is the case.
But it’s becoming ever-increasingly difficult to like this side when not only their head-coach, but their senior players begin to sing from the same, embarrassing hymn sheet.
The major talking point from the match between England and Italy at Twickenham was the Italians’ refusal to form a ruck, resulting in no offside line being formed.
This allowed Italian players to block the path of passes from the English scrum-half, a tactic which took quite a while for the English players to get their head around.
This perplexed the English players and it wasn’t until the second half of the match that they were able to deal with this adequately.
They clearly got some instruction at half-time from the coaches.
The fact that these professional players didn’t know the laws of the game and that they were unable to find solutions by themselves on the pitch was brought up by the media in the aftermath the match.
Clearly embarrassed over the situation and that Italy went toe-to-toe to a side who were supposedly, in Eddie Jones’ words, meant to take Italy “to the cleaners”, the English players resorted to questioning the integrity of the game due to to Italy’s tactics.
A poor excuse when you can’t front-up and admit that you got schooled for a large portion of the match.
Just watch some of these interviews below which were given to BBC 5 live Sport, cringeworthy stuff.
“I’ve never played in a team where that has happened,” Dylan Hartley told BBC 5 live Sport.
"I've never played in a team where that has happened"
England captain Dylan Hartley speaks to @chjones9 after #ENGvITA…#SixNations pic.twitter.com/EwnAO8c15K
— BBC 5 Live Sport (@5liveSport) February 26, 2017
Ben Youngs felt sorry for the spectators…good on him.
“You’re trying to promote the game and it’s not really a great advert is it…?
“…Frustrating day, not a great day to promote the game,and the spectators, I feel sorry for them but we got the job done on a professional level.”
"We need to look at ourselves and probably need to be better"
Ben Youngs chats to @chjones9 after #ENGvITA…#SixNations pic.twitter.com/TxNyi7i0Ji
— BBC 5 Live Sport (@5liveSport) February 26, 2017
James Haskell couldn’t hide his frustration over the “stupid” rule.
“It’s a pretty stupid rule and it probably should get changed because it doesn’t make any sense!
“It’s one of those things that’s never been done in an international game…”
Sorry James, but Australia employed this tactic against Ireland last November and so have a countless number of other teams at various levels of the game, so it is not exactly something new.
But don’t let that get in the way of Italy’s supposed ruining of the game.
"It's a pretty stupid rule"
England's James Haskell speaks to @chjones9 about Italy's tactics at the breakdown…#SixNations #ENGvITA pic.twitter.com/B5cC03zEvw
— BBC 5 Live Sport (@5liveSport) February 26, 2017
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