Head coach Steve Borthwick was “really pleased” that England bagged a bonus point in Sunday’s World Cup victory over Japan in Nice.
Joe Marchant reached out to dot down at the death to ensure the Roses, who opened their World Cup campaign with a 27-10 victory over Argentina, took five points for the 34-12 win.
“Tonight it was really tough, we got a bonus point so we’re really pleased with that,” said Borthwick, whose flyhalf George Ford kicked 14 points to be named Man of the Match for the second successive game.
With squad captain Owen Farrell available for the next game after serving a ban for a high tackle, and Marcus Smith enjoying a great cameo role as a replacement, Borthwick faces a dilemma for their remaining two games, against debutants Chile and Samoa, both in Lille.
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“How great is it that we have such incredible depth in quality there? I think a lot of countries would want the quality we’ve got – at 10 and 15. Marcus came on and was brilliant in that last quarter,” said the former England lock.
England captain Courtney Lawes paid credit to Japan, who were only 10-9 down at half-time of an often scrappy contest at the Stade de Nice.
“We knew they were going to put up a fight and they certainly did that,” said the flanker whose try – England’s second – was the turning point of the match.
“The conditions are probably not as good as they look. It’s so greasy out there. The boys did well, we came away with five points so you can’t ask for much more.”
Lawes said hot and humid conditions had made it tough to play more accurate, running rugby: “We wanted to play some good rugby tonight. Conditions were pretty tough to move the ball in but you saw in parts what we can do.
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“We’ll continue to work at it and hopefully by the time it comes to the quarter-finals we’ll be able to stick it. We’ll need to.”
“Japan are a great team, they challenge you in different ways, they’ve got an unbelievable attitude to never give in,” Ford added.
“It took until that third or fourth quarter for us to pull away a little bit, which we planned for in the week actually.
“It was probably not the prettiest to watch and we had to build the game in a different way to get our points in the end, but I thought it was good discipline from the boys.”
Photo: Valery Hache/AFP