England brace: Shontayne Hape
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England ran six tries past Georgia for a 41-10 win, but were made to work overtime for their victory in Dunedin on Sunday.
Whilst England bagged maximum points against the brave Georgians, who never gave up until the final whistle, Martin Johnson will know there's still plenty of work ahead in what was another unconvincing display by his side.
But as it was, Shontayne Hape (2), Delon Armitage, Manu Tuilagi and Chris Ashton (2) crossed for tries, while Toby Flood added 11 points with the boot.
Georgia managed a try of their own, through number eight Dimitri Basilaia, however will rue five missed kicks at goal by pivot Merab Kvirikashvili - three in the first half, and two after the break.
The minnows, who had to cope with a four-day turnaround after a 15-6 defeat by Scotland on Wednesday, briefly had a shot at the greatest World Cup upset of all-time.
They were only 17-10 down at half-time after England, for the second match in a row, had a player yellow-carded, with hooker Dylan Hartley sin-binned shortly before the break.
However, one couldn't blame England for thinking they were in for an easy night's work as they opened the scoring after just three minutes after Hape scooted through a gap at the fringes of the breakdown to run through unopposed.
Georgia's response was almost immediate, though, as England coughed up possession from a scrum in their own 22, but Ashton did just enough to deny opposite number Irakli Machkhaneli in the corner.
Kvirikashvili then missed two shots at goal while Alexander Todua was brought down by Ben Youngs as the eastern Europeans took the game to their more illustrious hosts.
England were doing themselves no favours as they conceded a series of needless penalties at the breakdown. However having endured an uncomfortable 15-minute spell, England began to settle and put the phases together.
And unlike Georgia, they took their chance when it came along with Hape benefiting after a series of drives forward to dot down for his second try. Flood converted to put England 14-0 up after 22 minutes.
Kvirikashvili was off target with his third successive kick before the Georgia fly-half finally found his target after 27 minutes. Flood, though, responded with a penalty of his own to restore England's 14-point lead.
But Georgia finished the half with a flourish and England again shot themselves in the foot as Hartley was sin-binned for hands in a ruck.
Basilaia bundled his way over from a close-range scrum for a try on the stroke of half-time which Kvirikashvili converted.
England's nerves were soothed though when wing Delon Armitage went over for a 45th minute try after being denied earlier by the TMO, who ruled his foot went into touch.
Georgia kept coming and when England infringed again, Kvirikashvili hit the left post from right in front. And just after the hour mark England put the game beyond Georgia's reach, with two quickfire tries.
First Tuilagi scythed through on a well-angled, cut back run from a pass by Youngs before Ashton, released by flanker Tom Wood, had too much speed for a tired defence to swallow dive in under the posts.
In the dying seconds, Ashton crossed in the corner for his second try of the match.
Victory for England, but a proud performance from Georgia.
Man of the match: A late inclusion at number eight after Nick Easter's injury, James Haskell produced a lung-bursting defensive performance and gave England some go-forward, but was overshadowed by Georgia openside and our man of the match Mamuka Gorgodze.
Moment of the match: Of all the seven tries scored, we felt the only one that left a lasting impression was the one scored by Georgia. It signalled that the eastern Europeans weren't going to roll over so easily.
Villain of the match: Dylan Hartley joins England's yellow card club.
The scorers:
For England:
Tries: Hape 2, Armitage, Tuilagi, Ashton 2
Cons: Flood 4
Pen: Flood
For Georgia:
Try: Basilaia
Con: Kvirikashvili
Pen: Kvirikashvili
England: 15 Ben Foden, 14 Chris Ashton, 13 Manu Tuilagi, 12 Shontayne Hape, 11 Delon Armitage, 10 Toby Flood, 9 Ben Youngs, 8 James Haskell, 7 Lewis Moody (c), 6 Tom Wood, 5 Tom Palmer, 4 Simon Shaw, 3 Dan Cole, 2 Dylan Hartley, 1 Matt Stevens.
Replacements: 16 Steve Thompson, 17 Alex Corbisiero, 18 Tom Croft, 19 Louis Deacon, 20 Joe Simpson, 21 Jonny Wilkinson, 22 Matt Banahan.
Georgia: 15 Revaz Gigauri, 14 Irakli Machkhaneli, 13 David Kacharava, 12 Tedo Zibzibadze, 11 Alexander Todua, 10 Merab Kvirikashvili, 9 Irakli Abuseridze (c), 8 Dimitri Basilaia, 7 Mamuka Gorgodze, 6 Shalva Sutiashvili, 5 Vakhtang Maisuradze, 4 Ilia Zedginidze, 3 David Kubriashvili, 2 Jaba Bregvadze, 1 David Khinchagishvili.
Replacements: 16 Akvsenti Giorgadze, 17 David Zirakashvili, 18 Levan Datunashvili, 19 Giorgi Chkhaidze, 20 Bidzina Samkharadze, 21 Givi Berishvili, 22 Lasha Khmaladze.
Referee: Jonathan Kaplan (South Africa)
Comments
APV1 says...
@ Trinats - behave! At least we won..!!! (How's that Guinness?) ;-)
@ jonesy2 - always a pleasure! Don't forget your pills and the doctor will see you soon. Bless him, he doesn't get out much.
@ lawynd - we had "G!mp of the Game. A rather fetching floral dress was the attire for the evening for the "winner". Yes. I did get it. A lot. Always deserved too! (Once for decking my own player, thinking he was the opposition!)
We won. Just. Thankfully and not through any great skill. I thought we played the ref badly again for the first 30 minutes again. It's not like the ref doesn't shout a warning. Even if you disagree with their decision, they're the one with the damned whistle, so listen to them and obey them!
God, it's so frustrating!
Georgia played well and we won, despite playing poorly. Whilst many people (particularly those south of the equator), berrate us for our cumbersome and "boring" style, in a knock-out competition it works. So why were we trying all the fancy stuff, when we couldn't even get the basics right? A better team will punish us for this sort of thing.
Scotland will be looking at us and thinking, "Maybe... Just maybe.." And rightly so. If we play like that, the hairy-arsed Jocks will punish us and we'll be on our way home.
Come on England! We're better than that!
Posted 10:54 19th September 2011
jamesliveinhope says...
I suspect that Ashton may not be doing it again - pretty sure he hurt or winded himself in that one judging by the look on his face when he got up.
Judging by his landing, I suspect he nearly lost the ball and had to sort himself out mid-air making his landing a little squiffy.
Posted 08:36 19th September 2011
Jediboy says...
Well said Golden_StateNBA.
I like your common sense and fair approach.
The IRB make the rules. And I bet the over the years a large %age of teams have fielded 'foreign' players.
Posted 19:06 18th September 2011
Golden_StateNBA says...
Also I don't got all the people going on about players from other countries playing for England etc.
In the Samoan side there are 13 players born in NZ so people should be complaining about that as well.
In this age it should not matter what race or where a player is from if he wants to play for England NZ Australia Wales etc and does it within the rules who cares
Posted 18:04 18th September 2011
Golden_StateNBA says...
@wazsere
Yeah for me. Out of all the NH teams I love to watch Ireland play. They like many of the other NH teams are inconsistent but when they play the SH teams you always feel that if they play like they did yesterday there will be an upset.
I don't get that feeling with England.
I support NZ but I'm not a NH basher Australia basher etc. Rugby is not my favourite sport so these are unbiased views. If NZ don't win I won't cry about it I just like the world cup and games like yesterday.
Would love to see Scotland play better as well.
Like I said early days
Posted 16:21 18th September 2011
melkdave says...
@jonesy2
LOL thats a god one about the easiest gruop lol.Its well documented and known by most people that actualy Australia have the easiset group in the RWC
Also given the state of the wallaby pack and the quality of Argentinas and Georgias play this weekend i dont think they would have won either game LOL Sorry about the l;ittle dig but you ovisously know nothing about rugby and your constant rants are making you look foolish My advice THINK 1st b4 posting and try and be objective
Posted 16:19 18th September 2011
lawynd says...
@benski - it wasn't strictly a problem with Youngs (although a couple of times his indecision at the ruck got him scragged), more the continually poor ruck work by players like Hartley and Palmer and dare I say it, Moody. For all his critics in that area, one of the better forwards in the rucks today was Croft, both offensively and defensively.
Without Moody at the races (I'm sorry but I actually now wish he'd take one for the team and go home 'injured'), Wood is too lightweight to be of any real use in this area against meaty forwards like the Georgians (did Gorgodze's mother dally with a bear perchance!?) and we suffered again as a result of this back-row imbalance. Haskell was good at eight though, he just needs to work on the technical aspects of working at the base of the scrum.
When I played, we used to cop a 'w@nker of the match' award, complete with pink tracksuit to wear down the pub afterwards. Perhaps England could adopt something similar for any players conceding basic penalties? Or maybe Hartley just needs his ears syringing?
Posted 15:38 18th September 2011
TVaddict says...
Wow! Why do people have such a problem with England?! I genuinely don't dislike any other team, why do you bother with this prejudice nonsense?
I find the arguments against some of our 'foreign' players as blatantly ignorant as straight racism. In fact, the people who would actually raise these arguments are probably a bunch of racists.
Do you ever think about how difficult it is for people in those positions? I have a friend has two English parents, was born in Spain and spent the first 5 years there, then was brought up in Holland till the age of 18, and has spent the last 4 years in England. If he ever gets to international standard he will have a choice of several countries, yet who ever he chooses there will be ignorant people criticising the choice. This means that because of people like you he will feel like he doesn't fit anywhere which is not fair.
The only player I feel shouldn't be playing for England is Hape as he's already played for New Zealand (albeit in league).
Posted 15:11 18th September 2011
Rorschach says...
Some cheese with your whine Trinats and jonesy2?
Unlike some nations who might be be described as xenophobic (or endemically racist), being English is not a matter of where you were born, what colour your skin is, or who your parents were. Aside from a few idiots who read the Sun and vote BNP (or in some cases Tory) this is a country where people can come and work and live and become accepted as members of the population - i.e. English. If people want to be English then hey, how is it your business or mine?
Posted 15:08 18th September 2011
ericmarseille says...
Except for Ashton's swan dive it was such an uninterested game...But the little twat came, and swan dove, and shone, and life was never the same again on this planet!
Well at least that's what someone could tell by looking at his face.
When I was a kid it wasn't even up to the opposing team but to one's own teammates to re-center a show-offy c...t with a good infusion of smacks to his melon.
How things change with the course of time.
Posted 14:42 18th September 2011
jonesy2 says...
england are lucky they are in the easiest pool.
Posted 14:33 18th September 2011
headhunter99 says...
@bothhands
Give him a break pal, he was probably so relieved that England had played 2 won 2 unlike Australia.
Posted 14:25 18th September 2011
headhunter99 says...
@Trinats.. I agree Georgia were brilliant and it would be a step forward if the big boys would play them more often. Especially the SH big three who rarely seem to want to help with the development of the smaller sides. The problem is with all due respect to the minnows they don't generate enough interest to fill the big stadiums and at the moment its all about revenue.
Posted 13:53 18th September 2011
butl says...
The game is won, time is up on the clock and we have a scum 5 meters from their line. Surely we just want quick ball and a drop goal and then go home?
Instead, we go for a push over try which turns Shaw's ankle. Then we spin it out wide after the reset scrum, Ashton scores but nearly breaks his wrist doing it!
I hope that those players are not injured because of poor decisions on the pitch.
Posted 13:29 18th September 2011
Jediboy says...
Trinats - More English players scored today than Oz players yesterday. Maybe you should be a little more concerned with things closer to home than having a dig at the English.
Posted 13:12 18th September 2011
Jediboy says...
Jamielivesinhope - try not to worry about the digs. It seems that everyone loves sticking the knife in when it cones to England. I ignore most of it, like Trinats trying to be smart and failing dismally.
Posted 13:08 18th September 2011
ChrisInCrete says...
Trinats: sorry about your team yesterday. England won, 6 tries scored by 4 England qualified players. It's enough.
England still building. Job done. Bit like last time and look where it got us.
Posted 12:48 18th September 2011
jamesliveinhope says...
Starting to feel a bit victimised here as an Englishman - just watched teh ITV pundits lauding France for their performance and slagging England for theirs both playing similarly ranked opposition and getting similar scores.
Then I see bigb69 criticising England for being offside all of the time and saying that Georgia were naive for not.
England do have a problem, refs are taught that the first likely infringement will come from the defenders and are looking for it. at Elite and international level its been pretty relaxed with players on the ground but, this RWC, there has been no tolerance at all. Step up every head coach in the world and suddenly posession at defensive rucks is ceded unless there is a strong chance or winning it. Every head coach apart from England apparently the result is (a) a higjh penalty count and (b) Opposition posession is not put under any kind of pressure because England have no numbers in defence. (making their defensive efforts so far pretty good).
On the subject of the ball, the worst of the trouble seems to have been at Dunedin. Wilkinson said before the tournament started that he would rather a windy stadium than a closed stadium because the wind cancels out variables like humidity and air temperature. You only need to ask a cricketer about the impact that has on ball flight and you will see why the balls seem to be veering off all over the place.
Posted 12:38 18th September 2011
Maubec says...
IRB and New-Zealand are the only winners of this game : IRB with those only 4 rest days for Georgia and New Zealand because without Hape, England would have been in serious trouble...
Georgia were great and whith 3 more days, they could have challenged England more than 60mn.
When IRB will understand that minnows challenging big names and upsets are what people and medias're waiting for, they'll reconsider this infamous schedule for minnows.
For example, here, in France, apart french team's results, the only news broadcasted this week-end on non-sport radios was the Irish victory.
If IRB want a more global and wordly exposure for the World Cup, they have to accept it.
If not, rugby'll still be the sport of the same dozen of countries for decades...
Posted 12:00 18th September 2011
melkdave says...
@islandpower
IThere definatly has to be regular tests for Georgia against the big boys along with Canada and the USA in fact i think its vital for thier development.Saying that i dont think there will be a 7-8 nations Italy-Scotland would most proberly veto any talk of playoffs for the team finishing last in the 6N
Posted 11:34 18th September 2011