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| England U21s end on a high |
| 25 June 2005, 12:00 am |
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Although the venue may have been familiar, it was a different England that took the pitch and run in eight tries and destroy the Six Nations champions. The victory secures a seventh place finish for Jim Mallinders young England side.
Although the crowd at Liceo, venue of Englands defeat at the hands of South Africa, saw Wales start strongly scoring 10 points in as many minutes, it was England who impressed with their rugby. Finding the passion, adventure and accuracy that eluded them on previous occasions they dominated the first period, slicing through the midfield and outpacing the Welsh to score three unanswered tries in 18 minutes.
Although Wales pulled another one back to level the scores at 17 all, England stayed calm to finish the first period with their seven point lead intact thanks to a Varndell try, his second of the half.
After the break the team in white crossed the whitewash a further four times physically outclassing the Welsh in almost every department and playing a tactically astute game to starve their opponents of both territory and possession.
When the young England side finally found the 15 man expansive game they had been looking for it was an impressive sight. Wings Tom Varndell and Paul Diggin combined well to create and finish three of their teams first half tries. In contrast the fourth came from Newcastle fly half Toby Flood who produced a magnificent solo effort from his own half, his second of the tournament, and slotted the conversion to take the half time score to 24-17 in Englands favour.
Despite losing locks Richard Blaze and Sean Cox to the sin bin at the end of each half, England dominated both scrum and line out and produced a constant supply of quality ball for their backs. When scrum half Ben Foden and flanker James Haskell added tries of their own in the second period England were ahead 36-20 and relishing every moment. In Hartley, Hopley and Haskell they found good ball carriers and with the pack going forwards Flood orchestrated the attack. Accurate running and passing and powerful running produced further second half tries for Varndell (to round off a hat trick), Geraghty and Dickson.
But for a five minute period at the end of the second half that saw Wales briefly threaten and cross for two tries, England were home and dry. Their impressive performance may have come too late to see them improve on last years fifth place finish, but still they can be proud to have found their form and finish their season on a high.
Said Mallinder, We were looking for a good performance and we wanted to play with width and pace and get away from the set piece dominated game that weve been forced into in the last couple of matches.
I think we managed to do that and we played some good rugby at times but we had to work hard all the way.
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