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England fall to worst defeat at Twickenham

Australia captain Stirling Mortlock, left, reacts as France fly-half David Skrela, right, illegally tackles Australia winger Digby Ioane during their Test match at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, France, on Saturday. Australia won 18-13. PHOTO: AFP

South Africa inflicted England’s worst ever defeat at Twickenham, New Zealand knocked off Wales to close in on another Grand Slam and Australia beat France for another Tri-Nations sweep over Six Nations teams on Saturday.

In other rugby internationals, Ireland beat Argentina 17-3 in a bad-tempered game, Scotland crushed Canada 41-0, the Pacific Islanders beat Italy 25-17 for their only win since they were formed four years ago and Japan beat the US 32-17 to complete a two-Test sweep.

After unimpressive wins over Wales and Scotland, South Africa rebounded to crush England 42-6. They punished England’s errors in the same way Australia did at Twickenham last week and the error-ridden performance piled pressure on manager Martin Johnson, who has lost two of his first three matches in charge.

Danie Rossouw, Ruan Pienaar, Adrian Jacobs, Jaque Fourie and Bryan Habana all scored tries as the Springboks, who beat the English 15-6 in the World Cup final in France a year ago, registered their biggest score at Twickenham and the home side mustered only two penalties by fly-half Danny Cipriani, who had another poor game.

The margin of defeat surpassed the previous Twickenham worst, a 41-20 defeat to New Zealand in 2006.

Three penalties by Wales fly-half Stephen Jones threatened an upset at the Millennium Stadium where Wales led New Zealand 9-6 at halftime. But in a second-half turnaround in which New Zealand applied all the pressure, Dan Carter kicked the All Blacks ahead and converted both tries to Ma’a Nonu and Jerome Kaino to win 29-9 for their 20th straight victory in 55 years against Wales.

Hooker Stephen Moore and winger Peter Hynes scored tries as Australia beat France 18-13 at the Stade de France, following up their victories over Italy and England with another triumph on the road, their first against the French in France since 2000.

France kicker David Skrela missed five penalties and the home team squandered a 13-10 lead.

Ireland’s game against Argentina could have gone either way until a late surge.

There was an early blow for the Pumas when imaginative fly-half Juan Martin Hernandez limped off with a groin strain during the warm-up and had to be replaced in the starting lineup by Santiago Fernandez.

The replacement kicked the first points in the 37th minute, but Ronan O’Gara leveled a minute later to send the two teams into halftime at 3-3.

The Ireland fly-half contributed three penalties and a drop goal and provided the cross-field kick that sent winger Tommy Bowe over for the only try late in the game.

Scotland ran in six tries against Canada at Aberdeen’s Pittodrie Stadium, with winger Nikki Walker scoring two in his home town. Ben Cairns, John Barclay, Al Strokosch and Rory Lamont also crossed the Canadian line.

Fijian winger Vilimoni Delasau scored two of his team’s three tries against Italy at Reggio Emilia, in the Pacific Islanders’ first win in nine Tests and the last match on their latest three-Test tour.
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