England finished their year with a convincing victory over Japan, scoring plenty of tries despite facing a weaker opponent. While the result is positive, it does little to erase England's struggles against top teams this year.
A disappointing calendar year for England has at least ended with a flurry of tries and a healthier-looking outcome. A bucketload of points against a callow Japanese team on a blustery Sunday afternoon, however, does only so much to massage the overall bottom line. Five wins from 12 Tests – with four of the victories having come against Japan twice, Italy and Wales – tells the story of a side who look better when they face inferior opposition.
At least there were some flickers of pre-Christmas promise from the burgundy-clad hosts. There were a brace of tries apiece for England’s hookers Jamie George and Luke Cowan-Dickie while Henry Slade had a quietly excellent game in midfield but New Zealand, Australia and South Africa would all have fancied racking up closer to 80 points. This was the rugby equivalent of shooting koi carp in a barrel and nowhere near the level of England’s previous November fixtures. An inexperienced Japan side, minus their suspended lock Werner Dearns, were thoroughly outclassed and put up scant resistance in the first 40 minutes prior to a slight second-half upturn. If England could play them every week they would be delighted.So much for the fanciful theory that a swirling wind could just complicate things slightly. Might Storm Eddie conceivably sweep through Twickenham and cause some unscheduled havoc? The answer was such a resounding ‘no’ that England did not have to operate at much above third gear in the opening 40 minutes. The home side already had three tries on the board inside the first 23 minutes and would have had a fourth had a tiny knock-on by Jack van Poortvliet not been spotted in the build-up to a well-finished ‘try’ by Tommy Freeman in the right corner. It mattered not, with England so far in front in so many areas it called into question the hosts’ safety-first selection policy. The starting XV with experimentation kept to a minimum, seemed to have been picked on the basis that England could not afford to lose. As i
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