No. 8 Billy Vunipola scored a hat-trick as England opened their tour with seven tries in a 41-21 demolition of a South America XV at the Estadio Charrua in Montevideo, Uruguay, on Sunday.
The match served as a warm-up for far tougher Tests in matches against the Pumas in Argentina over the next two Saturdays and the tourists did not have it all their own way.
England fullback Ben Foden also went over twice, but not before the South Americans, who had never played as a unit before, opened the scoring with a penalty try midway through the first half.
Photo: Reuters
England, as they would have wanted ahead of Tests against the Pumas, got a strong forward workout from their opponents and had two men sent to the sin bin to one for the South Americans.
“The most important thing about the game is that it made clear to me how Saturday’s match will be, how physical it will be,” England coach Stuart Lancaster said of the first Test against Argentina in Salta.
“We’re going to structure our practices from here to Saturday to adapt to that. We’ve got to work better in the scrum,” he said.
“I think South America held the ball very well towards the end. They played pick and go well and held it in contact. They had good ball. They started well and finished well, we had our moments in the middle [of the match],” Lancaster added.
Skipper Tom Wood and replacement prop Paul Doran Jones scored the other tries for England, who were weakened by the absence of their British and Irish Lions tourists.
South America, mainly made up of Argentines with some Uruguayans and a Chilean in their starting 15, changed ends 31-7 down, but hit back with two more tries in the second half and finished strongly.
“I think they found the key in the lineouts and mauls. There, due to a lack of work together, we couldn’t sort it out quickly,” South America’s Uruguayan coach and former prop Pablo Lemoine said.
“We talked about it at halftime and went out with the clear message in the second half that we were going to play and take the game to them,” he added.
Flyhalf Benjamin Madero missed two early penalties as South America forced England into errors, but converted all of the home side’s tries, while Stephen Myler converted three of England’s.
Halfbacks Cubelli and Madero are in the Argentina squad and could well be named today in the team for the first Test.
England winger Jonny May was shown the yellow card in the 17th minute for the deliberate knock-on that resulted in the penalty try, and replacement prop Alex Corbisiero was sin-binned near the end.
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