Nick Easter would be perfectly happy if England bored their way to the RBS 6 Nations championship title.
The Harlequins number eight was unimpressed by England's lacklustre performance in their 17-12 victory over Italy and made his feelings plain after the game.
"God, that was boring," he said after a dismal encounter, dominated by long bouts of aerial ping-pong with only brief flashes of adventure.
Easter warned England cannot afford to be that predictable when they tackle reigning champions Ireland at Twickenham a week on Saturday.
But when push comes to shove, Easter would rather win ugly than not at all.
"The result is the most important thing. We are in the business of winning," said Easter.
"When we did go for it against Italy, when we did make the decision to counter-attack we cut them open.
"But maybe we can improve our communication and vary the attack up a little bit. It is all about mixing it up. That is how you put sides under pressure.
"Whether you win by kicking six penalty goals because you put a side under pressure and they don't want to concede a try or whether you score three tries as we did against Wales, it doesn't matter."
England had spoken in the build-up to the championship of a new-found attacking freedom, some of which they unleashed on Wales in the opening game.
The performance in Rome ranged from moments of scintillating rugby, one of which resulted in a try for Mathew Tait, to long spells of aimless punting.
Jonny Wilkinson bore the brunt of the blame with World Cup-winning team-mate Matt Dawson claiming England's star fly-half cannot manage a game.
Manager Martin Johnson fiercely rejected those criticisms and he was not willing to enter into any debate on the merits of entertaining rugby.
"There were times we could have kept the ball in hand but we are kicking to try and create something, we are not kicking because we can't think of anything else to do," said Johnson.
"We are doing these things because they are effective, not because they are entertaining. If we need to kick the ball for 80 minutes we will kick the ball for 80 minutes."
Johnson did concede England must improve before Ireland arrive at Twickenham - but he is convinced his team will be better for the experience.
"It shouldn't have been that close against Italy but it was," said Johnson.
"It is not a bad thing for us to have a game like that when it was nervous, we had to keep our heads and find a way to finish it off.
"No-one is kidding themselves - if that was the best we can play then fine. But we know we can be better than that and we will need to be better than that to beat Ireland.
"We need to make smart decisions and play the game that is in front of us. We got involved in a game on Sunday that shouldn't have been as close as it was, but we won it.
"Do we need to improve? Of course we do. When we counter-attacked with conviction we were good. We need to see the opportunities a bit better and exploit them.
"If we scored early when Mark went through it would have changed the complexion of the game.
"I'd have been more worried if we hadn't created the opportunities.
"We did unlock them. We made numerous line breaks. It was turning those into scores. It is a process we are going through in terms of improvement."
England last beat Ireland at Twickenham in 2008, when Danny Cipriani replaced Wilkinson at fly-half and produced a stunning performance on his full international debut.
Last year, Ireland won 14-13 at Croke Park but they will arrive at Twickenham with their Grand Slam defence in tatters after a comprehensive defeat in Paris last weekend.
Johnson said: "They will be hurt. They are coming off a loss and getting a bit of grief at home. We are coming off a win and getting a bit of grief. It will be a cracking game.
"England-Ireland has become a huge game in the last decade."
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