Having watched Australia blitz Canada in the day’s first game, England did their best to respond in kind running in 6 tries on their way to a 41-17 win over Fiji at Rodney Parade with Alex Goode pulling the strings in a fine display of fly half skills.
The early evening Newport sun may well have suited the South Islanders but it was England who excelled in the conditions with the back three of Miles Benjamin, Seb Stegmann and Noah Cato revelling in the space afforded them by Alex Goode’s excellent passing off either hand.
Leading 41-0 at the interval having scored six tries, it was only handling errors that had prevented England from scoring more with the Fijians often reduced to chasing shadows.
However, the second half was a different matter as England seemed to have switched off slightly and the Fijians enjoyed some rewarding forays into English territory displaying some typically extravagant handling in the process.
Further English try scoring opportunities were created but spurned with Odejobi, Benjamin and Tait all coming close as Nigel Redman’s team struggled to recapture the heights of the first half and Fiji duly raised the Rodney Parade roof with three well worked tries in the final quarter as their confidence visibly grew.
England strove in vain for a further score and their growing frustration was perhaps typified by the sinbinning of replacement hooker Joe Gray.
A comfortable enough win for England but a real game of two halves and the second half display will give Head Coach Nigel Redman much food for thought.
Worcester Warriors’ wing Miles Benjamin carried his fine form from the domestic season over into this game with a brace of tries and Goode contributed a personal haul of 16 points.
Fiji Head Coach Rayne Simpson: “It was a tale of two halves. The boys were a bit nervous at the beginning but to put 17 points on a Tier One Nation like England in the second half and not to let them score either was a great effort.”
Fiji Captain Jese Cirikisuva: “Our first half let us down. We didn’t concentrate enough on our set pieces, lacked numbers at the breakdown and it cost us. But we came back well in the second half, scored some good tries and we will get better.”
England Assistant Coach Mark Mapletoft: “To score six first half tries in the first game against a good Southern Hemisphere team is a real positive. We started the second half well without having the clinical edge we had in the first and that led to a lack of concentration and they came back strongly”
England Captain Hugo Ellis: “We set our stall out to come out strongly and lay down a marker for the tournament and we played some outstanding rugby in the first half. We were always going to struggle to maintain that but we’ll look at the video and talk with the coaches and learn from it.”
