Eddie Jones: 'I can't answer questions on rugby because there wasn't any'

England won 36-15 to stay on course for back-to-back grand slams but the victory, which needed a late surge of tries to put a gloss on the result, was almost forgotten in the immediate aftermath as the opposing coaches took markedly different views of Italy's tactic of not putting any players into a ruck.

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That allowed their players to legally drift behind the tackle area and obstruct the England scrumhalf without being offside.

England required a long time to get to grips with the situation, with French referee Romain Poite at one stage telling them: "I'm the referee, not the coach, you have to find a solution," after flanker James Haskell asked for clarification.

The situation became even more bizarre when England briefly adopted the same approach at the breakdown in the second half.

Jones, however, did not see it as a clever variation, comparing the tactics to Australian Trevor Chappell's infamous underarm delivery to prevent the batsman hitting a boundary with the last ball of a one-day cricket international against New Zealand in 1981:

However, the Aussie conceded that he had considered using the tactic with his former side Japan.

"At one stage we were going to try that with Japan but we decided against it because we thought it was against the spirit of the game," he added.

"If you think it’s smart, fantastic. I don’t. I’d rather pick up my stumps, put them in the kit bag and go home."

Unsurprisingly, Italy coach Conor O'Shea had a different take on the day's main talking point, saying that his team had merely found a way to use the sport's labyrinthine laws to their advantage, having cleared the tactic with referee Poite before the game.

"What do people want us to do? Be normal, lay down and get beaten? We can't be normal, we have to be Italy," said the Irishman who took over last year.

"We will dig our way out of this hole by thinking differently. We're not inventing anything - it's a tackle so there's no offside. We never played the nine, we just occupied the space.

"It's nothing new but when Australia or Toulouse did it, it was fantastic but when Italy do it, it's wrong. We did not come here to roll over. They wanted 70 points, to take us to the cleaners. Is that respect?

"It's about time Italy got some respect," he added. "When we beat South Africa in November they're terrible. When England beat them it was the first win for 10 years; brilliant, well done England."

"You are going to see us do things differently. You saw it today - we've had enough, we are going to fight."