Conor O’Shea has managed to change his reputation with a single 80 minute performance after England scrum-half Danny Care claimed Italy’s ‘no–ruck’ tactics had seen him go “from being the most attacking man in rugby to the most negative”.

O’Shea and his defence coach, Brendan Venter, ordered their Italy squad not to compete for the ball on the floor during Sunday’s 36-15 defeat by England and instead avoid rucks to enable their defensive line to stand legally in an offside position.

The tactic drew the wrath of England head coach Eddie Jones, his players and the Twickenham fans, but O’Shea was simply making the most of a World Rugby loophole to legally stem the number of attacks that his side faced. The former Harlequins coach, O’Shea, issued a stunning defence of the tactics after the match, in which he accused England and the other top nations of disrespecting Italy and insisted the country “needs to change” to be taken seriously.

Care admitted afterwards that he wants to speak with his former coach to understand why he took such an approach.

“I’m going to pick his brains over a beer. He’s gone from being the most attacking man in rugby to the most negative in one game” Harlequins scrum-half Care said. “They felt they had to do it to try to get a result but they didn’t.”

O’Shea developed a reputation for favouring attractive running rugby during his time in the Premiership with London Irish and Quins, but the ploy caught Care – starting his first international in a year – by surprise, and he admitted that the Irishman had never thought about removing the ruck during his time at the Twickenham Stoop.

“No, no. We never tried to do that” Care added. “Why the law is like that I don’t know, but it’s within the laws to do it. We’ve experienced it against us a couple of times, but only once or twice in certain games.

England vs Italy player ratings Show all 15 1 /15 England vs Italy player ratings England vs Italy player ratings <b>England:</b> Mike Brown – 5 out of 10 Left on his heels when Michele Campagnaro broke through the line, but started to show signs of his running best in the second half that he hasn’t shown for quite some time. Getty Images England vs Italy player ratings Jonny May – 4 out of 10 Failed to take a Ben Te’o offload in the first half when through on the try line, and faded from that point on as England struggled to figure out how to get the ball out wide. Getty Images England vs Italy player ratings Ben Te'o – 7 out of 10 When he got the chance to run with the ball he was impressive, taking a crash ball through the line and bagging his second try as the game began to unravel. Showed some nice offloads and also effective in the tackle. Getty Images England vs Italy player ratings Owen Farrell – 4 out of 10 In what was supposed to be a celebration of his 50th cap, Farrell put in possibly his worst performance in an England shirt. Twice he committed the cardinal sin of missing touch from a penalty and kicking the ball dead, and he also struggled with the swirling wind inside Twickenham as he missed a penalty and three conversions. He also got away with a questionable hit on Edoardo Gori to put him out of the game. Getty Images England vs Italy player ratings Elliot Daly – 7 out of 10 Displayed his pace once again to bag his second try in as many matches and was unlikely not to double up after impressive defending from Carlo Canna saw the replacement fly-half kick the ball out from under Daly’s hand. He also did his defensive work well, helping to force a knock-on in a maul on the England try line. Getty Images England vs Italy player ratings George Ford – 5 out of 10 He will rarely see less of the ball thanks to the Italian defenders. His kick down the line nearly produced a try for Daly, but he fell short defensively when Campagnaro ran over him on his way to scoring. Getty Images England vs Italy player ratings Danny Care – 6 out of 10 Sparked the England fightback into life with his quick tap and go to score in the corner after catching the Italian defence asleep. He was also the first to counter the Italian defence by running through the middle of the ruck. Getty Images England vs Italy player ratings Joe Marler – 6 out of 10 The English front-row struggled early on but that wasn’t any of Marler’s doing as he stood firm. Went through the motions a bit when it came to carrying, and was withdrawn in the 55th minute for the returning Mako Vunipola who made a notable impact in the scrum and the loose. AFP/Getty Images England vs Italy player ratings Dylan Hartley – 5 out of 10 Asking referee Romain Poite what England need to do to ruck wasn’t a high point, but his lineout was exemplary. Questions about whether Jamie George should come into the side won’t go away yet though. Getty Images England vs Italy player ratings Dan Cole – 5 out of 10 A game of mixed fortunes for the tighthead, and he conceded two penalties inside a minute in the first half before scoring England’s opening try. He also struggled early in the scrum, with Lovotti managing to turn him in twice to win penalties. Getty Images England vs Italy player ratings Joe Launchbury – 7 out of 10 One of those who led Plan B in the second half as he took on the carrying duty from the base to try force Italy into retreat. Appears to be excelling with each game that goes by. Getty Images England vs Italy player ratings Courtney Lawes – 6 out of 10 Carried well once again and put in a big hit on Allan to shake up the fly-half, but as England struggled to find ways of securing clean ball, his impact faded. Getty Images England vs Italy player ratings Maro Itoje – 7 out of 10 Two steals in the lineout helped disrupt the Italian set-piece and he also imposed in defence, with one big hit on Venditti setting the tone early in the second half as England got back on the gas. Getty Images England vs Italy player ratings James Haskell – 6 out of 10 Given it’s his first international start for eight months, it’s hard to over-analyse the flanker. One knock-on wasn’t his fault given it was a poor pass from Care, but his conversation about the laws of the game will not be one for the highlight reel. Getty Images England vs Italy player ratings Nathan Hughes – 7 out of 10 Another to endure a mixed game as he combined powerful running and tackling with conceding two penalties at the breakdown and also dropped the ball in an early counter attack. Getty Images

“To have it in every breakdown is something new. It’s another thing this team has experienced. We got through it and managed to find a way, it probably took us a bit longer to adapt than we wanted to but we did and we got five points. We’d have taken that at the start of the game.”

At the start of the game there were very few who knew what Italy would unleash. Beyond the squad and coaching staff, it appears that only O’Shea’s brother knew of the move, and the head coach even kept it quiet when former Harlequins wing turned rugby pundit Ugo Monye called him on Friday. Had O’Shea told the ITV commentator, England may well have known exactly what Italy were planning, because Care was sitting with Monye at the time of his phone call with O’Shea.

“I was with Ugo having a haircut on Friday and I didn’t realise he was on the phone to Conor. I think Ugo wanted some help with his commentary, on the sort of things they were trying to do,” Care explained.

“Ugo asked him and Conor obviously said no, so I said to him ‘you’re a liar, but a good liar’. Ever the politician, Conor!”

But removing the positive relationship Care clearly still holds with his former coach, he did echo the calls by Jones and his England teammate, George Ford, for something to be done by World Rugby to prevent the same happening again, given that every time he looked up to pass to Ford, he found Italian scrum-half Edoardo Gori in the way.

He said: “I’ll be honest, I didn’t know what was going on with the first couple. I thought he’d [Gori] seen a penalty or something. They obviously came with a very strict game plan which they had been working on all week and they put it into play for a good part of the day but our class showed in the end.

Danny Care scored for England shortly after the restart at Twickenham (Getty)

“I think Eddie has said everything that needs to be said about it. We all echo his thoughts. It’s a pretty ridiculous rule. If teams feel they need to do that to make it a level playing field it’s very negative.”

Any rule change is unlikely to come though, with World Rugby backing referee Romain Poite for his interpretation over Law 16.1b that rules the formation of a ruck, and the Rugby Football Union have confirmed that they will not take any extraordinary measures other than the usual channels to force a change in the regulations before England face Scotland a week on Saturday.