FRI
ENGLAND 35-11 FIJI
ENGLAND SHOW TOP
QUALITY AGAINST CANADA
The early
signs were encouraging enough, despite the fumbles: the Fijian front row were
shackled and then shattered at the very first scrum – George Ford opened his
World Cup account with a nine-iron shot from in front of the sticks – and there
was better news by far in the 13th minute when the red-rose forwards pieced together
a dynamic driving maul that reached the line on its third high-speed churn.
But the
x-factor in Fijian rugby runs unfathomably deep, and it surged to the surface
when Matawalu returned from his 10-minute break without the option
The outcome?
A penalty try, thanks to an illegal intervention by the islanders’ scrum-half
Niko Matawalu, who was packed off to the cooler for his trouble.
Sunia Koto,
the Fijian hooker, overcooked the resulting line-out throw, bunging the ball
straight to the England flanker Tom Wood, and one clever little Jonathan Joseph
tap-pass later, Brown was over for the second try of the night
They saw a
lot of the ball and Mike Brown, the heart-and-soul full-back, ended the match
with a brace of tries that were fair reward for a courageous performance in
both attack and defence. They also claimed a try-scoring bonus point when the
replacement No 8 Billy Vunipola smuggled the ball over with the last move of
the match.
www.telegraph.com
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