RUGBY:ENGLAND MAN of the match Toby Flood refused to get carried away with his side's 26-19 win over Wales at the Millennium Stadium last night that got their Six Nations campaign off to a flying start.

Martin Johnson’s men held firm against rugged Welsh pressure and will now fancy their chances of reclaiming the title with their next three matches all taking place at Twickenham.

But Flood said: “It’s going to be tough. We’ve got one tough win and we can carry on and build next week against a tough Italian side. What we can’t do is ease off the gas like we did back in the autumn.

“A lot of us have been here before and been unsuccessful, so we knew what was coming. We knew what we had to do to achieve this, and we did that.”

Two-try hero Chris Ashton added: “We’ve got a good team at the minute and we wanted to continue what we did in the autumn. I thought that showed today.

“We did well and we could have taken more chances but we took most of the chances that came and that’s what we have to do to win games like this.”

“It was a really good win, it was a real test for us and we came through it,” said England coach Martin Johnson. “There were anxious moments, we tried a few passes in the first half when we needed to hold on to the ball and they will say they had chances, but we kept them out and that’s the game.”

Wales wing Shane Williams admitted he was “immensely disappointed” by his side’s failure to take their chances. “We’ve lost our first game at home. It’s never a good sign.

“We were prepared for a big performance and we did it in patches but that’s not good enough. They’re a very physical and very confident backline at the moment and we made far too many mistakes.

“We gave away far too many at the turnover and discipline was a problem for us out there tonight. We can feel confident as players but we got in good positions and we just weren’t good enough in the end. We’re disappointed because we didn’t give the performance we promised.”