2026 Six Nations: England prop Joe Heyes admits Italy scrum is a real threat

Prop Joe Heyes revealed England have been keeping one eye on Italy and their improving scrum ahead of their Rome meeting in a fortnight – despite preparing for yesterday’s Ireland clash.

Italy have never beaten England but have turned over Scotland and gave the Irish the hurry-up in their first two games before their clash with France today.

Their scrum has been a potent weapon with their prop pairing of Danilo Fischetti and Simone Ferrari, plus bench men Mirco Spagnolo and Muhamed Hasa, causing carnage in Dublin.

At one point, the great Irish tighthead Tadhg Furlong appeared to be airborne in the set-piece as Italy went to work and Red Rose scrum coach Tom Harrison is on the case.

Exciting matchup

Heyes, above, said: “The Italians are a real threat at the moment and I have been so impressed with those games they have played.

“We have even looked at how their back five have been initiating the initial movement rather than their front row.

“Technically, the Italians have been brilliant. That will be an exciting match-up in a couple of weeks.

“The scrum now is becoming increasingly more powerful in games. You have seen it in World Cups.

“For us, it has not particularly changed. We will identify personnel before games and it is an area that we want to go after, because one area we pride ourselves on is having a solid set piece.

“You will go in with a plan and sometimes that plan doesn’t work, so it is how you can adapt on the go.“

Hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie

Hayes continued: “We do a lot of practice on that in training, so they will represent different pictures to us in training about this has happened or we are facing this scenario, how can we fix it on the go, because you don’t want to keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result. That’s the definition of insanity.”

The scrum was a lone highlight of England’s 31-20 defeat to Scotland in round two and has come on leaps and bounds under Harrison in the last 12 months.

Hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie, above, added: “The buy-in from the boys has been a lot better.

“There’s a belief that over the last year or so, our scrum could be a dominant force for us, and we know how big it is in the game.

“You can get penalties from it, get entries into the 22, get lineout moves five metres out. There is loads of stuff we can do with our scrum.”