England 45-7 United States: George Ford stars as Red Rose click into gear in Kobe heat
After their meek opener against Tonga, today’s World Cup game with the USA was an opportunity for all of England’s players, but none more so than George Ford.
Named captain by Eddie Jones, the Leicester Tigers fly-half was handed responsibility for leading the side, directing traffic and implementing tactics.
He grabbed the chance with both hands in Kobe, putting in an imperious, controlled and effective performance which helped England run out 45-7 winners.
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It was Ford who spotted a gap and went under the posts to open the scoring, and from thereon in most positive play stemmed from him.
Early on he used the boot to ensure England’s pressure never let up and, once the game had opened up in the second half, he defied the heat and humidity to show the more creative side to his game.
He looks at home in the Red Rose No10 jersey.
Berry good
It wasn’t just England under pressure to perform following a sub-standard start to the tournament, with the officials keen to impress after unprecedented criticism from World Rugby.
With poor officiating, and in particular high tackles, in the spotlight there wasn’t an auspicious start when, from the first contact of the game, England centre Piers Francis flattened Will Hooley with a poorly-aimed hit.
There was another high tackle from Marcel Brache on Joe Launchbury, but overall referee Nic Berry and his assistants had a good game.
Former player Berry was clear in his communication and correctly sent off John Quill, whose shoulder charge left Farrell with what Jones described as “half of his nose”.
Well-oiled machine
Playing a vastly inferior side ranked 13th in the world allowed England the chance to go through all their set-piece routines.
Right from the first whistle their utter dominance was clear and Jones will have been pleased to see a team which contained 10 changes from the Tonga match click into gear.
The fact they were 19-0 up at the break owed much to the line-out, with Tom Curry gathering for Billy Vunipola to score before Luke Cowan-Dickie eased over from another catch-and-drive.
England won 16 of 17 line-outs and all eight of their scrums, with the handling errors in the loose indicative of sweaty palms largely absent from set pieces.
Cokanasiga’s confidence
While the first half was defined by control and brute strength, the second opened up enough to allow the backs more space in which to operate.
England ran in seven tries altogether, and although that tally could easily have been higher, there was plenty of skill, invention and pace on show to encourage them for the bigger tests which await against Argentina on 5 October and France a week later.
Joe Cokanasiga had to settle for two tries after being unable to gather Farrell’s lovely late kick, but the 21-year-old won’t be too upset.
The imposing Bath winger made 85 metres – the most of any player – and benefited from two incisive passes from Ford to cross the white line.
Squad depth
There was plenty of other encouragement for Jones, with back-up players showing their worth to provide competition for places.
Lewis Ludlam was dynamic around the fringes and grabbed his first England try, Jonathan Joseph brought excitement with a nimble pirouette in the build-up to Cokanasiga’s first try and replacement prop Ellis Genge showed his turn of speed for the final score.
Jones will have been irritated by the lack of game awareness which allowed the USA to score through Bryce Campbell in the dying moments to prevent a first England World Cup shut-out, but overall it was a job well done in Kobe.
Main image credit: Getty Images