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England rout Manu Samoa

Alex Lozowski scores for England

England chalked up a landmark 200th win at Twickenham as they rounded of their November internationals with a 48-14 rout of Samoa.

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No other side in international rugby has won as many games at a single venue and England – powered by man of the match George Ford – rarely needed to get out of second gear to make it three wins from three this month, having already beaten Argentina and Australia.

Mike Brown, Alex Lozowski and Charlie Ewels all touched down in the first half as England opened up a 22-7 lead, Piula Faasalele’s score the only blot for Eddie Jones’ men.

The going was tougher early in the second half with Samoa’s superb defensive work frustrating England, but two Elliot Daly tries either side of a Henry Slade score and Christopher Vui responding for the visitors preceded a last-gasp score for Semesa Rokoduguni.

Bigger challenges undoubtedly lay in wait, but England have still been beaten just once under Jones’ stewardship heading into 2018.

 

Having benefited from several contentious decisions against Australia, England saw an early tight call go in their favour on Saturday.

Danny Care was adjudged not to have knocked on at the breakdown and Maro Itoje slipped in Brown for an easy score in just the second minute.

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England were over again when Tim Nanai-Williams made a hash of an up-and-under, and Daly and Jamie George combined to send Lozowski in for his first international try.

Slack defending from the hosts quickly allowed Faasalele to put Samoa on the board with a pick-and-go under the posts.

The hosts were soon back in the ascendancy, though. Ford kicked a penalty before Ewels bulldozed his way over at the end of prolonged pressure.

England lost Jonny May to a head injury shortly after the restart, and the hosts were frustrated by some stoic work from Samoa in defence, which earned the visitors several breakdown penalties.

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However, just after the hour, England were over again. Ben Youngs’ quick hands found Ford, who in turn fed Daly – the Wasps man stepping in off the wing and heading for the corner.

Faasalele was then harshly sin-binned for going off his feet at the ruck, and England made their numerical advantage count as Slade dotted down at the end of a lineout move.

Samoa did have something to cheer when Vui dived over from close range, but Daly showed Samo’s defence a clean pair of heels to race over again, before Rokoduguni completed a free-flowing play with the last move of the game.

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F
Flankly 2 hours ago
There remains a culture of excuses in Australian rugby

One team has exceeded expectations in this series and the other has not. Hats off to a Wallabies team in rebuild mode for a smile-inducing effort in the second test (especially the first half).


Completely agree that a top ranked team finds ways to defend a big half-time lead, and they did not quite pull it off. The fact that Piardi did not run the Head Contact Process in the 79th minute Tizzano/Morgan incident is worth discussion. However, Schmidt will be pointing out to the team that avoiding a defensive breakdown on your own 5m line at that point in the game is the thing in their control. Equally, clarification 3-2022 says you cannot jump or dive as a means of avoiding a tackle, as Sheehan admits to have done, but the question for Australia is why and how they were facing a tap-and-go 5m from their line (again).


Where I disagree with this article is the suggestion that Australia are caught in an excuse-making trap of poor performance. For me they are on a steep curve of improvement, and from what we have seen of Schmidt, there is little reason to assume that this will end now. Granted Australia lacks player depth, and that’s a real problem against big teams and in major campaigns. But the Lions are a pretty good team, probably ranking in the top five in the world, and the rebuilding Wallabies were seconds (and a couple of 50/50 ref calls) away from beating them at the MCG.


In the end, the Wallabies are building to a home RWC, and were expected to lose the Lions series on the way to that goal. Success looks like being seriously competitive in the series loss, with good learnings about what needs to be fixed. A series win would have been a fantastic bonus, and humiliation for the UK/Ireland team.


I expect the Wallabies to be very credible in the 2025 RC, to be much better in 2026, and to be a very challenging opponent for any team in the 2027 RWC.

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