England v Italy Uncovered: Why there was nothing wrong with the Italians tactics
ITALY'S use of 'The Fox' at Twickenham on Sunday - their code name for the defensive ploy which flummoxed England for much of the game - has caused ructions in rugby union.
Eddie Jones after England's win: That wasn't rugby
An offside line is only created when two players contest a ruck after a tackle.
Italy did not contest the ruck, so no offside line was created, allowing scrum-half Edoardo Gori to persistently block Danny Care's passing line to George Ford. Was the tactic valid? Rugby union correspondent Neil Squires says yes.
Italy did nothing wrong in unleashing 'The Fox'.
When you have a team that is inferior in every respect to the opposition, as Italy were to England, it is up to them to find a way - within the laws of the game - to compete. They did that at Twickenham.
In exploiting the complexities of rugby union's arcane law book, the Azzurri coaching staff did what countless other sides have done down the years - bend them to suit their needs.
Their assessment was that their players were not fit enough or defensively disciplined enough to take England on in a more traditional contest so they changed the rules of engagement.
It was off the wall but ingenious and it worked. England, Grand Slam champions, were made to look like dullards.
If they had worked out more quickly that the close-range rumble was the solution then the issue would have been nipped in the bud early on but they failed to do so until they had chance to unscramble their minds at the break.
When Italy's defence consultant Brendan Venter unveiled the plan to the squad in Rome last week, there were nervous laughs. They had never been asked to do anything like it before.
But the more they worked it through, the more they realised it could stop the England machine in its tracks.
It took some guts to do it - and keep on doing it - at an increasingly incensed Twickenham but they did. To still be in contention with 10 minutes left against England was a victory in itself and the fact that they crumbled thereafter, letting in three tries, merely underlined the accuracy of their coaching team's self-diagnosis.
Eddie Jones was livid. He said he has considered using the same tactic when Japan coach but rejected it on moral grounds. It was, he said, against the spirit of the game.
Was it though any more against the spirit of the game than his Australian side's reluctance to engage properly at the scrums when they played Clive Woodward's England to negate their clear advantage in that area?
Jones is generally the smartest guy in the room but on Sunday he was outsmarted by Conor O'Shea and Co and he did not like it one bit.
Might there have to be a law change as a result of the shenanigans? Probably, in order to prevent a rash of copycat productions. O'Shea himself admitted as much.
This is what tends to happen in complex sports when a team exposes a loophole just as Douglas Jardine's England cricket team did in Australia. The Bodyline Series precipitated a change in the number of fielders behind square on the leg side to outlaw the tactic.
In the same way, rugby union's powerbrokers may in due course decide 'The Fox' represents too much chaos even for such a chaotic game.
Still, it was effective while it lasted and, in a weird way, fun. Twickenham has never seen a game like it.