They failed to score a single point for more than an entire half of play between Mike Brown’s 21st-minute try and Owen Farrell’s penalty in the 67th minute.
Advertisement
But Fiji, putting pressure on England’s scrum, did have a try a minute later on the half-hour mark when giant wing Nemani Nadolo leapt high over opposing England flyer Anthony Watson to grab Ben Volovola’s hanging kick.
It was a big occasion and there were a few nerves.
But he said England showed “good character” to get back into play and throttle the Fiji challenge.
“Brown was excellent”, said Lancaster.
“There will be moments in this World Cup which will live with us for the rest of our lives”.
During his brief time on the field, the England attack straightened, took a more direct route through the Fijians and produced a further 17 points in the final 12 minutes. They have a team of big physical men across the board and we have to look at our decision-making there.
Burgess aside, Australia would’ve been heartened for much of the contest by a less-than-convincing display from their Pool A rivals England.
“He’s a fantastic player and a fantastic competitor”, Lancaster said.
“We’ll watch the game again, meet on Sunday and narrow down our selection next week”. They were each introduced, ending with England’s only World Cup winning captain Martin Johnson, who needless to say, got a deafening reception from the crowd.
Robshaw added: ‘We always knew it would be hard and would go to the last five or 10 minutes and as you saw it was the last couple of seconds for the bonus point. “Credit to Fiji, they put us under a lot of pressure”, he said.
25 teams from all over Europe, aged 35 and over, will come together in the spirit of the sport to celebrate rugby at amateur level throughout the weekend – see the schedule here.
“I felt we needed some energy”.
“Still it is a potential banana skin out of the way and we managed to get it back eventually and we’ll take the positives”. Billy Vunipola launches himself at the line and it’s a bonus point win. Billy, Mako and Sam came on and did well for us, provided quicker ball and that proved the difference in the end.
Advertisement
“The first two could have been made from two angles being reviewed and the Fijian disallowed and awarded tries from just one”.
