England smash weakened Oaks
24 Sep 2011
England scored 10 tries in their 67-3 drubbing over a weakened Romanian side in Dunedin.
This was England’s most convincing performance of the tournament. They ran riot on attack with wings Mark Cueto and Christ Ashton the chief assaulters as they grabbed a hat-trick each. On defence, they managed to keep Romania tryless as the minnows could muster three points in the whole game through a first-half penalty via flyhalf Marin Dumbrava. However, in fairness, this victory shouldn’t be celebrated too much.
Effectively, this was Romania’s ‘B’ team as they made 11 changes, including another 14 positional changes, from their strongest team that faced Argentina in their previous game. England also rung the changes as Martin Johnson made seven adjustments, but they were far from a weakened team. It was always going to be a comprehensive victory for the 2003 champions.
And that was how it panned out. England’s forwards were dominant up front against their hapless opponents, with loose forwards James Haskell and Tom Croft thriving with the regular front foot ball. The backline also flourished with the forwards’ ascendancy, and exposed a frail defence that met them.
Cueto scored England’s first three tries in the opening 27 minutes. However, it won’t be counted as the fastest World Cup hat-trick as Wallabies speedster Adam Ashley-Cooper scored a second-half hat-trick inside seven minutes against America on Friday. Ashton continued the first-half rout, dotting down twice for a 34-3 lead at the break.
Scrumhalf Ben Youngs, fullback Ben Foden, outside centre Manu Tuilagi and Croft all crossed the chalk in the second stanza before Ashton dived over for the final try to complete his hat-trick and seal a resounding win.
By Gareth Duncan
30 Comments
24 Sep 2011, 07:46 am
Not worth getting out of the fartsack?
24 Sep 2011, 07:47 am
The last time these two played the score was 130+ to nil
24 Sep 2011, 07:50 am
@Auntie Mavis(Auntie Mavis)-2:
Maybe 50- 60 points This is not a great England team
24 Sep 2011, 08:02 am
Who knows what it will be
24 Sep 2011, 08:14 am
Wilkinson gives more evidence of his lack of running attack vision
24 Sep 2011, 08:21 am
Having watched most of the games so far, the one thing I am glad for is that WE HAVE MORNE STEYN!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can see him pulling us out of the s h ii t (like he did against Wales) during the knockout games.
24 Sep 2011, 08:39 am
I’m at work. Is Keo broken or are England only winning 3-0 with a few minutes to half time left???
24 Sep 2011, 08:42 am
34 -3 against Romania B
24 Sep 2011, 08:45 am
@JockBok(JockBok)-7: You can stream the game from vipbox.tv if you got internert at work…
24 Sep 2011, 08:47 am
@CoachPete(CoachPete)-8:
Cheers Coach, too good to be true I guess.
@Siyavuna(Siyavuna)-9:
Thanks mate, but with 10 of us on a 128kb/s line, it takes about a minute to refresh the page. No chance of streaming at all.
24 Sep 2011, 08:53 am
Good morning all you lazy Africans!
24 Sep 2011, 08:55 am
and lazy yanks
Morning Dawn
24 Sep 2011, 08:57 am
@CoachPete(CoachPete)-8: Another fcking B side???!?
24 Sep 2011, 08:59 am
Romania thinks this is a game of touch rugby. They’re busy getting a big wake-up call.
24 Sep 2011, 08:59 am
@Heavens Game(Heavens Game)-13:
Yes like the eagles Aussies should not be too happy with their performance
These weaker teams and the depth drop off quick
Eagles had 14 changes
24 Sep 2011, 09:00 am
And 20 seconds into the 2nd half, another try.
24 Sep 2011, 09:00 am
England playing well … they have no habana thats why
24 Sep 2011, 09:03 am
@CoachPete(CoachPete)-15: Yeah, I saw that. And Japan B against the almighty infallible… No sympathy… What is it with these teams – they have 4 pool games, not likely to make knockouts, but will play a B team against the strongest team in their group… and then blowout. No sympathy whatsoever!
24 Sep 2011, 09:06 am
@Dawn(Dawn)-11: good morning Dawn
24 Sep 2011, 09:09 am
The Romanian heads have dropped. This is going to get ugly.
46 – 3 with 30 mins to go.
24 Sep 2011, 09:09 am
@Heavens Game(Heavens Game)-18:
Eagles have targeted Italy for a win so they rested everyone
and Romania want to beat Georgia
Plus these weaker teams have had short break between games this week
so its partly the scheduling fault
24 Sep 2011, 09:15 am
England by 30 looks rather conservative now.
They’re still making all the same errors at the breakdown though, it’s just that the referee isn’t penalising them as heavily (as predicted, NH ref for first time for England this RWC).
24 Sep 2011, 09:19 am
England dont look great
24 Sep 2011, 09:20 am
Mmmm. I see the AB thread opened already.
Bloody it will be!
24 Sep 2011, 09:24 am
Wazzup with the scoring Keo!
53 – 3!!
24 Sep 2011, 09:34 am
If you heard these english commentators you think England have won the world cup
Time to turn it off
24 Sep 2011, 09:58 am
@CoachPete(CoachPete)-26:
You say that like it’s your first encounter with the fabled english commentator. If they’d broken 100pts there’d be a coronation ceremony tomorrow.
24 Sep 2011, 10:05 am
@Tartan(Tartan)-27:
Nope i expected it
They may have complained about the ref for not making 100 points
25 Sep 2011, 03:08 am
What an arrogant English team this is. Ashton’s dives are ridiculous. You’d swear they were playing Australia the way they carry on. They do not seem to be serious about this RWC at all. I think there is no belief. No cohesion in the English camp. Just by watching Haskell’s cam they seem to be just there for a jolly. Its like watching a school boy rugby tour. They’re going bungy jumping and jet boating and having nights out. There seems to be no focus on the rugby itself. I doubt you would catch the Wobblies or the ABs doing this. The English press are talking up England big time. They smashed a weakened Romanian team who do not play the game professionally. ***** they would probably make the USA look like gods. They have the easiest of groups. They will be severely under-cooked come the QFs.
26 Sep 2011, 22:45 pm
test italics
test anti-censor: shit
Have your say
You must be logged in to post a comment.