England vs Italy Six Nations 2025 Prediction and Preview ...Middle East

England have won 100% of their meetings with Italy in the Six Nations. Will they maintain the Championship’s only blemish-free record here?

England still have aspirations of a shock triumph in the 2025 Men’s Six Nations, but they will need France to do them a favour this Saturday if they are to maintain those hopes come kick-off at the Allianz Stadium on Sunday.

All history in this fixture points to a comfortable home bonus point win. Only twice before have England not scored 4+ tries in home wins over the Azzurri: a narrow 18-11 win in 2013 and a 20-7 victory in 2007.

England’s form has been enough to keep the fans on the edge of their seats, though. Their last three home games in the Six Nations have seen them pick up wins by the narrowest possible margin of just a single point. They’ll be hopeful they can have a more relaxing afternoon in this Round 4 clash and bank the bonus point and a comfortable margin of victory early on.

Strengths

Kicking is the go-to tactical option for both of these sides. England have made more kicks in play than any other side (120) in the 2025 Six Nations, with Italy ranking second (100). If you want to learn more about England’s reliance on this gameplan then read our deep dive here.

Despite their dependence on kicking, England have actually been one of the most successful ball-carrying sides in the Championship. They have the best rates for gainline success (63%), tackle evasion (26%) and dominant carries (38%).

Individually, Tommy Freeman has been a real handful. Of players to make 15+ carries, he boasts the best gainline success (82%) and dominant carry (60%) rates this year, as well as the fifth best tackle evasion rate (44%). Ange Capuozzo (40%) and Tommaso Menoncello (37%) both feature in the top 10 for tackle evasion, so keep an eye on them as well.

Goalkicking has been a struggle for all sides in this Six Nations, with the cumulative success rate of 70% being the lowest since the 2009 edition (67%). Italy have had the best success rate of any side, though, slotting 79% of their kicks, with Tommy Allan (38) sitting at the top of the points scoring charts with a kicking success rate of 82%, despite an xGK% of 74%. He’s scored 3.5 points more than would have been expected from the difficulty of his kicks, while Fin Smith has the next best rate at +1.4 points.

Weaknesses

Italy’s defence was put under enormous pressure against a rampant France in Round 3, and ultimately it buckled. Overall, their tackle success rate in the tournament is middling at 86% (third best), and they have the best rate of tackling on the hips or below (38%), but this doesn’t tell the full story.

They have allowed a whopping 66 offloads from the tackles they’ve made, which is 25 more than any other side (England 41). That equates to a competition high 9.6% of their tackles where they’ve failed to stop the movement of the ball. Obviously, this adds significantly more stress to their defence, allowing no time to reset.

Individually, Tommy Freeman has allowed the most offloads from tackles made (10), offsetting some of his good work with the ball in hand mentioned above. But joint-second in that ranking are Italy duo Sebastian Negri and Simone Ferrari (both 7), with Lorenzo Cannone, Giosue Zilocchi and Simone Gesi all in the top 10 for this ranking too (all five).

Defence remains an area of concern for England. They have the second lowest tackle success rate (85%) and have also allowed a high number of offloads (41), but they also have problems at the breakdown.

Their kick-heavy strategy is a factor, but their overall ruck speed of 4.98s is almost 1.5s slower than every team apart from Italy (4.27s). If we remove rucks that end with a kick and just look at breakdowns between the two 22s, their ruck speed is still the slowest (3.5s), so they struggle when looking to play the ball as well.

They’ve also struggled to slow down opposition ball too, allowing the fastest ruck speed in defence of any side (3.47s).

Maybe England are happy with this pace at the breakdown, but it does make them a little too predictable, easier to defend against and more vulnerable when under attack.

Fantasy Picks

Maro Itoje remains a reliable pick for England in the engine room. Barring injury he’ll play the full 80 minutes and his work rate never falters. He is just two shy of reaching 500 tackles in the Six Nations, and he’d be the fifth player to reach this milestone, while he also needs just two turnovers to top the rankings in the Championship’s history, overtaking Brian O’Driscoll (53).

Italy have plenty of attractive options to pick from. Their midfield duo of Menoncello and Juan Ignacio Brex are both high scorers, while Cannone is as busy and reliable as Itoje. If you’re after a prop then Danilo Fischetti has the second best score of any player in that position in the Championship.

Jamie George is set to win his 100th cap for England in this match, and the sentimental among us might want to mark the occasion by dropping him in your fantasy team. To be fair, he has five tries in his last five Championship starts against the Azzurri, so would be a shrewd bet anyway.

100 – @J_George2 is set to become the 7th male player to win 100 caps for @EnglandRugby; he joins fellow Saracens player, Amy Garnett, as the only hookers (men's or women's) to reach a century of caps for England. Leader. pic.twitter.com/AyzJRbhMqQ

England vs Italy Prediction

Despite Italy running England close in 2024 (24-27), the Opta supercomputer still sees Steve Borthwick’s side as big favourites for this match, with an 88.2% chance of winning.

The supercomputer predicts England will beat Italy by 20 points with a 37-17 scoreline being the most likely.

England vs Italy Lineups

England

15 Elliot Daly, 14 Tommy Freeman, 13 Ollie Lawrence, 12 Fraser Dingwall, 11 Ollie Sleightholme, 10 Fin Smith, 9 Alex Mitchell, 1 Ellis Genge, 2 Jamie George, 3 Will Stuart, 4 Maro Itoje, 5 Ollie Chessum, 6 Tom Curry, 7 Ben Earl, 8 Tom Willis

Replacements: 16 Luke Cowan-Dickie, 17 Fin Baxter, 18 Joe Heyes, 19 Ted Hill, 20 Chandler Cunningham-South, 21 Ben Curry, 22 Jack van Poortvliet, 23 Marcus Smith

Italy

Lineup TBA

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England vs Italy Six Nations 2025 Prediction and Preview Opta Analyst.

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