Saturday evening and Wales full of hope hosted England at the Racecourse Ground in front of just over 4,000 expectant and hopeful fans. This contest however was always going to be David versus Goliath, given that the previous week France ran up a tidy win 20-6 against Wales.
The conditions were ideal for running rugby and both sides set out their ambitions early on and both had chances to convert but let of the opposition with errors.
It took 9 minutes for the stalemate to be broken as England scored their first through Ryan Hall, Sinfield missed the conversion out wide. 0-4. Another six minutes passed before Josh Charnley took his first International try and stretched the score to 0-8. England then scored on eighteen minutes Zak Hardaker, twentyfive, Kallum Watkins and thirty-one Zak Hardaker to take their lead to 0-26. Right on the hooter for the break Wales got reward for their endeavour as Christian Roets went over and Matt Seamark added the extras 6-26 half-time.
The second period and Wales needed to score first if they were to get into the game. Unfortunatly it was England who dotted down through Ryan Hall again, 6-32. Wales did produce a good finish on fourty-seven minutes to make it 12-32, but then the England machine cranked it up again and scores came at regular intervals from Gareth Ellis on fifty-one minutes, Josh Charnley fifty-five minutes. Rob Burrows from a seet midfield move on sixty minutes brought the 50 up and then Josh Charnley sixty-four minutes, Leroy Cudjoe sixty-seven minutes, Josh Charnley again seventy-one minutes, Jamie Jone-Buchanan seventy-five minutes and the game was rounded out with Leroy Cudjoe getting his second on seventy-seven minutes. This gave us the final score of:
Wales 12-80 England
Scorers
Wales
Tries: Roets, Fleming
Goals: Seamark 2
England
Tries: Hall 2, Charnley 4, Hardaker 2, Watkins, Ellis, Burrow, Cudjoe 2, Jones-Buchanan
Goals: Sinfield 12
Teams
Wales: Moss, Kear, Channing, Roets, D. James, Jones, Seamark, J. James, Budworth, Kopczak, Lloyd, B. Evans, Flower.
Replacements: Dudson, Fleming, Burke, Parry.
England: Hardaker, Charnley, Watkins, Cudjoe, Hall, Sinfield, Myler, Morley, McIlorum, Hill, Jones-Buchanan, Ellis, O’Loughlin.
Replacements: Burrow, Hock, Ablett, Mossop.
Att: 4,014
Ref: Theirry Albert (France).
Next up England host France at: MS3 Craven Park Hull on Saturday 3 November