How to watch England vs Italy Rugby World Cup warm-up match
England face Italy at St James' Park tonight in their last warm-up Test before the Rugby World Cup
Brimming with confidence after their resounding victory against Ireland, an upbeat England will now play Italy in their final warm-up Test before the Rugby World Cup.
Italy, on the other hand, is coming off a huge 19-47 loss to France, which they suffered in Paris last week.
England vs Italy will take place at St James’ Park in Newcastle on tonight at 7:45pm. The game will be broadcast on Sky Sports Main Event and Now TV with Sky Sports Pass in the UK from 7pm onward.
Eddie Jones said that he’s implementing a “mix and match” selection policy against Italy to develop his team’s ability to cope with situations on the fly.
This strategy will see Harlequins centre Joe Marchant start the game, despite him not being part of the World Cup squad.
England flies out to Japan on Sunday in preparation for their opening game of the Rugby World Cup, which is against Tonga on Sunday, 22 September.
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England had three warm-up games in the last few weeks. A relatively-inexperienced England side ended Wales’ 14 match-winning streak defeating them 33-19 in the first of their World Cup warm-up matches.
But Wales bounced back to win 13-6 at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium. The win briefly put them atop the rugby rankings for the first time since World Rugby introduced the ranking system in 2003.
In their last game at London’s Twickenham Stadium two weeks back, England scored eight tries as they got the better of Ireland 57-13, winning against their neighbours by a record number of points.
Meanwhile, Italy has just one win from their three warm-up Tests. They lost 10-29 to Ireland, then won 85-19 against Russia before last week’s loss to France.
New Zealand, England, Wales and Ireland all start as favourites going into the Rugby World Cup, which begins on 20 September in Japan.
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Buy tickets to England vs Italy
At the time of publishing, there were still a select few tickets available for England vs Italy on Friday.
As with any popular sporting event, the longer you wait to book tickets, the less likely your chances are of getting them.
This is especially true for this fixture since it’s the last chance to see England play ahead of next month’s Rugby World Cup in Japan.
How to watch England vs Italy: Now TV with Sky Sports
If you don’t have Sky TV, the easiest way to live stream the match between England and Italy is to buy a Now TV’s Sky Sports Pass. This gives you full access to all Sky Sports channels including Sky Sports Action.
There are three main options, depending on how long you want to have access to Sky Sports.
- Now TV Sky Sports Day Pass for £9.99
- Now TV Sky Sports Week Pass for £14.99
- Now TV Sky Sports Month Pass for £33.99
You can use your Now TV account on up to six devices and stream live video content on any two devices simultaneously.
How to watch England vs Italy: Sky Sports
Sky Sports customers can watch Saturday’s Anglo-Italian affair live on Sky Sports Main Event, with coverage starting from 7pm on Friday. You can add Sky Sports to your existing Sky TV package for £23 a month.
While this ties you down to an 18-month contract, it gives you access to all Sky Sports channels, meaning you can watch the Premier League, EFL Championship, Ashes cricket, Formula 1, and more.
How to watch England vs Italy wherever you are: use a VPN
If you’re outside the country, then your only option to watch England vs Italy at Newcastle on Friday is to use a good VPN service, then log in to your Now TV account. Apart from letting you access content that’s blocked abroad, a good VPN service also shields all your browsing activity from prying eyes, including your ISP.
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ExpressVPN: There are many VPN services out there, but the only one we can confidently say unblocks Sky and Now TV is ExpressVPN. It’s our best-rated VPN service and users get three months free when they sign up to the one-year plan. The service has numerous tutorials, 24/7 customer support and a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can’t go wrong.
NordVPN: Our second favourite VPN is NordVPN. While it isn’t as fast as ExpressVPN, it shares many of its other notable features, including an independent audit to prove that it doesn’t log or store any user data, 24/7 customer support and a no-questions-asked money-back guarantee. You can use it on six devices simultaneously, making it perfect to secure your entire family or a group of friends.