By Kath 6/7/03
July 6 2003

England were never behind after Worsley crossed the line nine minutes into the game. Iain Balshaw having an excellent game, scoring two tries and setting up a third as England' A', showed their superiority against the Japanese.

Let's be fair here and no disrespect to the Japanese! If England 'A' had not won this game - well there would have been something very wrong!  

However, this again was a superb performance and again shows the strength in depth that 'Team England' have.

And what next.... Well we can look forward to three cracking games before the World Cup.  Wales v England 23/8 Cardiff,  (Tickets still left for the Welsh game -see RFU Ticketmaster), France v England 30/8 Marseilles, both these games will be World Cup Trials according to Clive Woodward and will be on Sky Sports.

Then we have the big one England v France 6/9 -  when as I understand it, the England Elite squad will play as this is the last match before departing for the World Cup.  

Clive will have a hard choice choosing the players to fill those remaining places in the World Cup Squad, because as we have seen from this England 'A' Summer Tour  - the players in the 'A' squad are not finished yet and are pushing hard to get into that 30 man World Cup squad .

 

England A: Balshaw, Cueto, Johnston, Paul, Simpson-Daniel, Walder, Wood, Worsley, Greening, Green, Codling, Brown, Anglesea, Hazell, Vyvyan.(Captain) Replacements: Titterell, Hatley, Sheridan, Jones, Hyde, Scarbrough, Barkley.

Japan: Kurihara, Ohata, Namba, Motoki, Onozawa, Hirose, Sonoda, Hisadomi, Amino, Toyoyama, Kiso, Parker, Ito, Miuchi, Saito. Replacements: Yamamoto, Matsuo, Tanuma, Watanbe, Tsukida, Parkinson, T. Yoshida.