Sergio Parisse's early try frustrated Stuart Lancaster © Getty Images

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England coach Stuart Lancaster was pleased his side racked up 47 points but was left frustrated by their lapses in defence following their win over Italy.

For the second match running England started slowly and conceded an early try with Sergio Parisse crashing over after just three minutes. And despite their eventual 30-point win, Lancaster called for improvement from the team ahead of their trip to Dublin on March 1.

Jet-heeled Joseph grabs the spotlight

© Getty Images

• This was no vintage performance from England but in Jonathan Joseph, they have someone around whom they can build a potent backline. He was at the centre, albeit on the wing, of everything England did well. His two tries aligned wonderfully with the glowing praise levelled at England's "X-factor" by Stuart Lancaster in the week.
• But some of England's discipline will have frustrated their coach and his backroom staff. They bought three Italian dummies in the first 10 minutes and their tackling was a couple of notches short of what Andy Farrell demands from the team.
• Read the verdict from Twickenham here

When asked if he was happy with England's performance, Lancaster responded: "No, not at all. Defensively it was a soft try first up and a soft try at the end. That's a bit disappointing really. We didn't get the level of intensity throughout the 80 minutes that we needed.

"The 20, 30 minutes in the second half, we played some great rugby and scored some great team and individual tries. Jonathan Joseph takes the plaudits and rightly so."

For Joseph, he scored his third try in two Tests and scooped the Man of the Match award and this came after a positional switch when he moved to the wing early on after Mike Brown's injury.

"It was a big shift to put him on the wing," Lancaster said. "In an ideal world we wouldn't have put him on the wing but Browny's injury meant Anthony [Watson] went to fullback and JJ went on to the wing and did well.

"We assess players' performances over the season and we have scored them on a weekly basis. JJ has been top-ranked and so as the season's gone on his case for inclusion has been overwhelming. We felt he needed to develop in defence and that has come on and he is showing himself as a real leader in our team and that's off the back of good work at Bath."

Lancaster also praised Billy Vunipola's performance at No.8. "I thought he, in the first half, was good and defended well but in the second half his energy was superb. It was another game where he played the full 80. He backed it up after Cardiff and the likes of JJ, Watson and Vunipola managed to do that."

Brown was sidelined after a sickening knock to the head early on in the first half but was able to return to the bench in the second 40 to watch the rest of the game. He will now undertake the required return-to-play protocols and Lancaster is hopeful he will be fit for Ireland on March 1.

"It helps that it's two weeks and a day," Lancaster said. "We'll take him through the return to play protocol. Speaking to him in the changing room he seems fine but grumpy he had to miss the game. He's a brave player and it was a try-saving tackle.

"We'll see. We've got a training week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and he'll take no part in that but we'll see how he goes in the lead-up to the Ireland game."