England on track after Kenya win
ENGLAND were pushed hard in their opening fixture but a four-try win over Kenya means they were in a good place to reach the quarter-finals in Vancouver last night.
Following a somewhat disappointing fifth place in Las Vegas last weekend, Simon Amor’s men made the short North-American trip to Canada eager to challenge for the gold medal again.
With the flying South Africans in their pool, too, England knew they had to beat Kenya in their opening fixture to put themselves in the best possible position to reach the last eight. However, it did not start well as William Ambaka opened the scoring for the Kenyans but a late score from Phil Burgess meant the score was level at the break.
A fine finish from Samuel Oliech made it 14-7 but England hit straight back from the restart as they launched a long-range attack.
They looked set for their second try but Ambaka intercepted from an offside position which left the referee with no choice but to yellow-card the Kenyan while awarding England a penalty try.
Dan Norton edged England in front while playing with the one-man advantage before Dan Bibby wrapped up the win with a try in the corner.
A second win against Chile was expected late last night before the pool decider in the early hours of the morning against South Africa.
Wales had their backs against the wall early on with a 34-19 defeat to Fiji in their opening game.
Sam Cross scored in the first half but Fiji had already scored three times by then and they led 24-7 at the break.
Luke Morgan reduced the gap early in the second half but two tries from the Olympic champions took the game away despite Ben Roach’s late effort.
Fiji had the last word with a sixth try and look good to make the quarterfinals as do hosts Canada, Argentina, USA, New Zealand and Australia after wins in their first games.