England secure comfortable win over USA
England began their summer Test series with a convincing 43-29 victory over USA at Twickenham Stadium.
With eight debutants in the starting XV, it was an encouraging display with seven tries from Eddie Jones’ side on a mild afternoon in south west London.
It was USA who got the first points of the game when Luke Carty knocked over a long distance penalty, but from the restart Max Malins superbly took the ball on the full, made metres down the touchline and offloaded to Sam Underhill who barged over – the flanker’s first England try.
England’s second came from a break deep inside their own half, Freddie Steward latching onto Henry Slade’s flat pass and he sent Ollie Lawrence racing away who reached over the line from a cover tackle, Marcus Smith adding the conversion.
A Harry Randall break initiated England’s third as he fed Freddie Steward on the right wing and his clever grubber through allowed Joe Cokanasiga to run through and easily gather, with Smith adding the extras.
MATCH ACTION: ENGLAND V USA
Bath wing Cokanasiga grabbed his second on the 30-minute mark as he latched onto a wonderfully delayed pass from Smith to run in from 40 metres, his ninth try in 10 Tests, which secured England a 26-3 half time advantage.
It was USA who were quickest out of the blocks in the second half when Jamason Fa'anana Schultz when over from the back of a driving maul, but it was another debutant who scored England’s fifth when Jamie Blamire charged down an attempted box kick from 10 metres out, regathered the ball and crossed.
It was a charge down that got USA’s second try when Cam Dolan stopped Randall’s kick to score, but Harlequins fly half Smith, a Gallagher Premiership winner at Twickenham a week ago, got his first try when he grabbed Randall’s close range offload to stroll in.
His half back partner Randall then scored a brilliant individual try when his dummy broke the defensive line on the 22, he stepped the covering defender and then had enough strength to cross.
Hanco Germishuys and Christian Dyer got further American tries in the closing stages in a battling display from Gary Gold’s team.
Gloucester flanker Lewis Ludlow captained the side on his debut, becoming the first person to do since Nigel Melville in 1984, and only the fifth player ever, and with four debutants coming on as finishers it took England’s total debutants to 12 on the day.
It means England have now won all seven Tests against the USA and face Canada next week at Twickenham Stadium on Saturday, 10 July.at 1500 BST.
Reaction
England head coach Eddie Jones: “I’m really pleased for the boys. 12 new caps is a great day for rugby isn’t it? There are spectators at the ground, players are playing in front of their families.
“As a team there are things we can improve but for so many players making their debut, we’ve got to be pleased with how they went.
“We got a little bit loose. It was one of those games that tended to open up and as we got looser America got stronger, full credit to them.
“Losing Max [Malins] and Ollie [Lawrence] early in the game took away a bit of our firepower and obviously the combinations we’ve been training in the week, but we’ve got to be good enough to cope with that.
England captain Lewis Ludlow: “To have everyone back in, the boys have missed supporters so to have 10,000 in today has been a huge help for us.
“First half we stuck to our structures, the USA were always going to come out after half time fighting and that is probably where our downfall was, but we can work on that for next week.
“The forwards have been working had for three weeks, we’ve been prepping really hard and that can help produce results like that.”
England scrum half Harry Randall: “We’ve put a lot of graft in the past couple of weeks. It’s been a big week of prop and fortunately we came out and put that all into practice today.
“We had a good idea of what we wanted to do, the way USA played and I think we executed the game plan at times but a few work ons."
Teams
England
15. Freddie Steward, 14. Joe Cokanasiga, 13. Henry Slade, 12. Ollie Lawrence, 11. Max Malins, 10. Marcus Smith, 9. Harry Randall; 1. Ellis Genge, 2. Curtis Langdon, 3. Joe Heyes, 4. Josh McNally, 5. Charlie Ewels, 6. Lewis Ludlow (C), 7. Sam Underhill, 8. Callum Chick.
Finishers
16. Jamie Blamire, 17. Beno Obano, 18. Trevor Davison, 19. Ted Hill, 20. Ben Curry, 21. Lewis Ludlam, 22. Dan Robson, 23. Jacob Umaga.
USA
15. Will Hooley, 14. Mikey Te'o, 13. Bryce Campbell 12. Calvin Whiting, 11. Mika Kruse, 10. Luke Carty, 9. Ruben de Haas; 1. David Ainu'u, 2. Mikey Sosene-Feagai, 3. Paul Mullen, 4. Gregory Peterson, 5. Nick Civetta, 6. Jamason Fa'anana-Schultz, 7. Riekert Hattingh, 8. Cam Dolan.
Replacements
16. Joe Taufete'e, 17. Matt Harmon, 18. Dino Waldren, 19. Nate Brakeley, 20. Psalm Wooching, 21. Hanco Germishuys, 22. Michael Baska, 23. Christian Dyer.
