England A take Portugal to the cleaners in Leicester
England A cruised to a thumping 91-5 victory over Portugal in front of a crowd of 15,123 at Leicester’s Mattioli Woods Welford Road.
The hosts ran in 15 tries, scored by 12 different players, including a hat-trick for Harlequins’ Cadan Murley.
Exeter’s Josh Hodge crossed once and kicked three conversions, with Charlie Atkinson adding two successful kicks and home favourite Jamie Shillcock three.
England were already up 50-0 by the halfway point and continued to run riot after the break, but were denied a clean sheet when Portugal fly-half Manuel Vareiro crossed over in the corner for their only points of the afternoon.
George Skivington’s side remained fully in control after that score, dotting down four more times before the final whistle under the watchful eye of England head coach Steve Borthwick.
Bath lock Charlie Ewels captained the England side, with scrum-half Harry Randall, hooker Jamie Blamire, prop Joe Heyes and flanker Tom Pearson rounding out the list of starters who had already earned senior caps.
With Portugal’s best reserved for their Rugby Europe Championships semi-final against Spain next month, the visitors fielded an inexperienced squad and a starting line-up featuring none of the players involved in their historic World Cup victory over Fiji.
Newcastle Falcons’ Blamire got England off to a flying start, crossing over from a rolling maul inside the opening three minutes before Pearson, Alfie Barbeary, Rus Tuima, Will Muir, Murley, Max Ojomoh and Josh Hodge helped make it a half-century of points by the break.
The uncompromising hosts were awarded a penalty try two minutes after the restart, with Shillcock, Murley (two), Greg Fisilau and Oscar Beard all dotting down in the second half.
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It’s a good, timely wake up call for NZ Rugby (seem to be a few of them lately!) - sort out the bureaucratic nonsense at board level. We can’t expect to stay the number one option without keeping fans/players engaged. We’ve obviously been bleeding players to league for years but can’t let the floodgates open (although I think this headline is hyperbolic as it’s a result of a recent Warriors pathways system where they are tracking things more closely) Understand the need to focus boys on rugby if they’re at a proud rugby school too, don’t think it’s harsh at all re Barakat in Hamilton. Reward the committed players with squad positions. An elite 1st XV system in NZ has done more for league than they even realise, think it’s good to protect our game further.
Go to commentsDon’t pay a blind bit of notice to Lukie… he likes the sound of his own voice and is always looking for something controversial to say. He has been banging on about Leinster's defensive system all season like he knows something Jacques Nienebar doesn’t. Which is the reason why he didn’t apply for the job obviously
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