Captain Rooney revels as England stroll

WAYNE ROONEY proved himself not just a jack of all trades but master of a few as well as he guided England to their expectedWorld Cup victory over San Marino at Wembley.

Stand-in captain Rooney scored twice, on 35 and 69 minutes, in front of a healthy 84,654 crowd, taking him to 31 international goals, one more than Alan Shearer, Nat Lofthouse and Tom Finney.

Manchester United team-mate Danny Welbeck also bagged a brace on 38 and 71 minutes, before Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain rounded things off on 77 minutes.

The result took England three points clear at the top of Group H and in good heart for Tuesday’s trip to Poland, even though Theo Walcott is rated doubtful after being forced off inside the first five minutes.

England manager Roy Hodgson said: “It’s never easy when 10 players are parked in the penalty area but I was very pleased with the way we kept playing football from the f irst minute to the very last.

“Five goals is a good result and there was a good result also for us in Moldova, so it’s been a very satisfying week’s work.”

Marco Reus and substitute Toni Kroos both struck twice as Germany trounced the Republic of Ireland to maintain a 100% start to their World Cup qualifying campaign.

Reus set up victory with an eight-minute double at the end of the first half, and Mesut Ozil effectively wrapped up the points with a 55th-minute penalty.

However, they were not finished and Miroslav Klose’s 58th-minute effort set the stage for Kroos to make it 5-0 after 61 minutes and 6-0 seven minutes from time as Andy Keogh’s late header counted for little.