Italy arrived at Twickenham in the 2017 Six Nations having lost to England 23 times in a row. They needed a new approach …

It was Brendan Venter’s idea, to begin with. In the early spring of 2017, Venter was Italy’s defence coach and like his boss, Conor O’Shea, this was his first Six Nations in the job. They had already been beaten 33-7 by Wales and 63-10 by Ireland. Now they had a fortnight before they played England, a team they had lost to 23 times in a row. Given Italy’s form, no one, least of all their players, had reason to believe the game would be any different. But Venter saw something in that defeat by Ireland – and it gave him an idea.

O’Shea: It was a simple offside at a ruck. We thought we should have had a penalty, so we got a clarification from the referee after the match and he explained that it hadn’t been a ruck, so there wasn’t an offside line.

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Venter: It was a loophole in the law. A lot of teams had exploited it before. But only once or twice, in certain positions. I thought that if you did it throughout a match it would be very hard to play against.

O’Shea: Brendan came to me and said: ‘Please listen and don’t think I’m mad.’

Venter: I told Conor: ‘We need to do something different, we need to give the team a belief that we’ve got a plan that can actually unsettle England.’ And Conor is very open-minded.

O’Shea: It was all within the laws. And we had to try something. Ireland had beaten us pretty soundly. And you can’t stand in front of a group of players and say: ‘We’re going to do exactly the same thing and get a different result.’ They’ll look at you as if you’re mad.

Italy’s captain, Sergio Parisse: When Conor and Brendan asked us to play this way, we all looked at each other and said: ‘This is crazy’ because it was such a big risk.

O’Shea: We had to build belief in the system. So I told the players: ‘I’ll take responsibility. You just do it. It could go pear-shaped. And if it does that’s my fault.’

Venter: It wasn’t something we just discussed over a cup of tea and then tried on a Friday night. The whole group put a lot of energy into it. I told the players: ‘Don’t worry. We’re going to train this the whole week. We won’t look like idiots.’ We had another plan that was called the wolf. So I said to the players: ‘This plan isn’t as strong as the wolf but it is a lot more clever. And that’s why we called it the fox.

On the Friday before the game, O’Shea and Venter met the referee, Romain Poite, who agreed the tactic was legal, except in one detail. Venter’s plan was that instead of engaging in the ruck, Italy’s players would come around and tackle England’s scrum-half, Danny Care.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest All smiles: England coach Eddie Jones and his Italy counterpart Conor O’Shea greet each other before the game. Photograph: Paul Harding/PA

Venter: The week before I’d discussed the plan with Marius Goosen [the director of rugby at Treviso] and he had dabbled with it in Treviso’s match that weekend. World Rugby saw what happened and sent a new directive out, saying you now had to stay away from the scrum-half.

I thought it was against the spirit of rugby. But as a referee, it’s not your job make emotional judgments Referee Romain Poite

Poite: We had to clarify a few details. But the good thing was all the referees had already discussed the tactic with World Rugby because we’d seen some teams using it in a few games already. So we had thought about how to referee it.

O’Shea and Venter decided that the players would stand off the scrum-half instead, to block his passing options.

Poite: I have to be honest, I thought it was against the spirit of rugby. But as a referee, it’s not your job make emotional judgments about how a team plays, you just have to stick to the technical details of the law.

In the 11th minute of the match Parisse tackled Nathan Hughes, got back to his feet and then charged past Hughes to stand beside Care. The crowd were confused and a huge swell of boos rose around Twickenham as Poite let play go on. Italy did it another five times in the first half.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Italy look to deploy ‘the fox’. Photograph: BBC

Parisse: It was crazy for Romain. It’s not easy as a referee to go to Twickenham and have Italy doing that against England. Some referees would maybe be scared about it. But he showed a lot of character in the way he managed it.

Poite: I could hear the sound of the crowd, how frustrated they were, but I was concentrating so hard on the game that I shut the emotional side of my brain down. Actually I really enjoyed refereeing the game because it was such an interesting technical challenge.

The crowd were not the only ones getting angry.

Eddie Jones: My first reaction was that I was disappointed with the referee because he wasn’t refereeing the spirit of the game. The game needs a balance between contest and continuity. And when you take the contest out, then you destroy the spirit of the game.

Poite: When I left the meeting I told my assistant referees that after 10 minutes, the English team will find the solution. But they didn’t.

James Haskell kept asking Poite how to turn the tackle into a ruck. Poite told him: “I’m the referee not a coach.”.

Poite: Afterwards I regretted it because I have a lot of respect for James. I was trying to tell him even if I know what you should do, I can’t say.

Jones: We sent messages down on the field. But you just can’t change as quickly as that. We don’t have players who are naturally pick-and-go players.

The reason it worked so well is because we already knew what England were going to do next Brendan Venter

Venter: The reason it worked so well is because we already knew what England were going to do next. You don’t just make the plan, you think about how the opposition will react. And we knew the only thing they could do was start to pick-and-go. So we had prepared for that.

With 15 minutes to play, it was 17-15. Then England broke away to win 36-15.

Venter: In the end Italy weren’t good enough. A plan is not enough. You still need to kick the ball out, you still need to make your tackles and if you don’t you won’t win.”

O’Shea: Straight after the game Eddie told me: ‘Well done, great game.’ And then he said: ‘But you know what I’ll be like now.’

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Dylan Hartley looks puzzled. Photograph: Ashley Western/CameraSport via Getty Images

Jones gave a furious press conference.

Jones: I don’t think you should ever be allowed to play the game against the spirit of the game, I think that’s really important.

World Rugby changed the laws. You cannot use the fox any more.

O’Shea: It was a silly overreaction. Variety is what makes the game rich. When you’re the underdog you have to fight in different ways. That’s what this game is about. Different shapes, different sizes, different styles. And that’s all we did.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Eddie Jones looks on. Photograph: BPI/Rex/Shutterstock

Poite: A team shouldn’t be able to take advantage of the law to beat another team, that’s a problem, and not just because Italy did it but because a team was using the law to beat the opponent.

O’Shea: Listen, who went along to that match thinking we’d be talking about England v Italy a year later? It will be something the game will always look back on. The annoying thing for me is that we had a chance to win but we didn’t.

Venter: But it’s a good memory. It will always go down as the day we almost outfoxed England.