Scotland and England opened their Nations Cup campaigns with victories over Italy and Georgia respectively on Sunday (NZ time).
Scotland dug deep to overcome Italy 28-17 at the Stadio Artemio Franchi in Florence, while hooker Jamie George scored a hat-trick in England's 40-0 win over Georgia at Twickenham.
Late tries from Scott Cummings and George Turner saw Scotland claim victory, after they trailed 11-7 at halftime through two penalties from first-five Paolo Garbisi and a sparkling counter-attacking try finished off by Matteo Minozzi.
Scotland had scored the game's first try as Duhan van der Merwe cut a sharp line in from his wing to cross untouched, but the visitors looked shaken at times in the first half by Italy's combative defence.
Duncan Weir, standing in for the injured Finn Russell and Adam Hastings, had a mixed game with a disallowed try and some haphazard passes, but his kicking from hand and at goal kept Scotland in touch during Italy's dominance of the middle period.
Garbisi looked assured in a promising afternoon for Italy's young players, with Jacopo Trulla twice crunching Scottish star Stuart Hogg and 22 year-old prop Danilo Fischetti a menace at the breakdown.
Immediately after van der Merwe's sharp score, centre Marco Zanon burst through for Italy and sparked a series off offloads down the left touchline that ended in the Wasps fullback Minozzi crossing the line in the game's standout moment.
For all that thrilling attack and muscular defence, however, it was a depressingly familiar finish to the game for Italy as their fitness seemed to dwindle and Scotland began to wrest control through driving mauls and close carrying.
Italy in theory face Fiji next weekend, although the match is in doubt given the outbreak of COVID-19 in the latter camp that saw their match against France cancelled.
Scotland are due to take on France next weekend.
Meanwhile, George scored a hat-trick of identical rolling maul tries as England swept aside a spirited but limited Georgia in their opening Nations Cup match.
In a game they were always going to win comfortably, England looked somewhat mechanical in the first half but were still totally in command.
Flanker Jack Willis marked his debut with the opening try, George was driven over twice and Elliot Daly finished a nice backline move to put them 26-0 ahead at the break.
England took a long time to get going after the restart as Georgia enjoyed a spell of good possession, without ever threatening a try. However, another five metre lineout enabled George to bundle over for his third and replacement halfback Dan Robson also crossed for the sixth try after a neat breakdown dummy.
"Good tough game," says England coach Eddie Jones. "Georgia obviously came out and wanted to play a certain way, and we wanted to prove a point that they wouldn't be able to out scrum us.
"When you play in these conditions it is enormously important and if you get an opportunity to keep the ball, it's a way of scoring tries. We are used to playing any conditions and we can adapt to whatever is going on.
"We didn't allow them to get into the game and the underdog has been able to get into the game a lot in sport recently, but we didn't allow them to upset us. We would have liked to have executed a bit better because we maybe left 20 points out there.
"We are trying to create depth in every position. Jack [Willis] and Max [Malins] showed they are capable of playing test rugby, so now they have to fight hard to keep getting selected."
England will face a stiffer test next week when they host Ireland, while Georgia, revelling in a rare opportunity for a series of games against Tier One opposition, play Wales.
Reuters
