'Familiarity the key to England progress'

Head coach Brian Ashton's demeanour revealed a telling marker of where he thought England were on the recovery scale.

The hype of Jonny Wilkinson's spectacular comeback and a 42-20 win over Scotland were deflated by a spluttering 20-7 victory over Italy on Saturday, leaving Ashton to accept the blame for getting his tactics wrong from the start.

Still adjusting to life as head coach, Ashton has had 160 minutes of test rugby to gauge whether the world champions have begun to turn the corner since the dark clouds were lifted from the Andy Robinson era. His verdict was "must improve".

"I think it's pretty obvious we have a lot of work to do," Ashton said after his players were given a thorough examination by a rejuvenated Italy side determined not to be bossed around a rain-soaked Twickenham pitch.

"We knew we'd have a lot of work to do, I've been saying all along that this is a team that has now played twice together and it needs to play more together to get more familiarity."

That familiarity will certainly come with time, although England must significantly improve if their first visit to Croke Park to face Ireland in two weeks is not to spell a first defeat for Ashton.

Ashton had feared an Italian backlash after their mauling by France and so it proved. It was left to the accurate goal-kicking of Wilkinson, as in many previous tests, to provide the platform for England to grind out a win but the flyhalf, whose 15 points took him into the record books as the leading Five/Six Nations scorer, would have been less than pleased with his tactical kicking.

"Okay, mixed... didn't get a lot of ball on the front foot to be honest," was Ashton's verdict on the embryonic partnership between Wilkinson and his first receiver Andy Farrell, the rugby league convert still finding his feet in union but assured enough to suggest his time as an international inside centre will not be a short one.

England failed to spark as an attacking unit and with the forwards meeting their match scrumhalf Harry Ellis was afforded few opportunities to conjure the darting breaks that so unsettled Scotland.

Two wins from two have at least brought the feelgood factor back to an England squad shorn of confidence from a demoralising run under Robinson. With Ireland and France looming on the horizon though, that confidence will be put to the test.

Played yesterday: Ireland vs France 17-20.