Champions lie in wait as England target big finale

ENGLAND are certain to finish second in the World Series and are still in with a chance of winning their home tournament after going through their pool unbeaten at Twickenham yesterday.

Simon Amor’s men are chasing second in the table behind runaway winners South Africa to record their best finish since 2006.

With Fiji only two points behind them in the standings at the start of this final leg in London, England knew reaching the quarterfinals of the Cup was a minimum and they did so with wins over Spain, Australia and Samoa.

South Africa, who fell to Mike Friday’s USA in their last pool game, await in the last eight this morning but second place is already in the bag after Fiji failed to reach the last eight for the first time since Las Vegas in 2014 following defeats to Canada and New Zealand.

Amor said: “It was a pretty scrappy and messy day but the boys showed a lot of heart and that’s what we wanted to show the home crowd.

“South Africa are such a good team and they’re such worthy World Series champions. But we’ll play with the same heart and give it our best shot. I’m over the moon to have secured second place in the overall table. It shows how far we’ve come as a programme.”

Tries from Dan Bibby, Ruaridh McConnochie, Ollie Lindsay-Hague and captain Phil Burgess made sure England kicked things off with a comfortable victory over Spain, but they needed two late tries from Dan Norton to overcome Australia.

The Aussies led 12-5 after Boyd Killingworth and Simon Kennewell went over either side of a try from Burgess but England turned to their prolific try scorer to book their place in the last eight.

They ended the day with a third win with tries from Burgess, McConnochie, Lindsay-Hague and Alex Davis to overcome a plucky Samoa despite the loss of Bibby, who was removed from the squad after showing signs of concussion.

Wales looked set to break their Cup duck beating the USA in their opening game 28-12 on their way to finishing second in Pool A.

They scored four tries through Owen Jenkins, Sam Cross, Ethan Davies and Thomas Morgan while the Americans could only hit back with Ealing’s new signing Andrew Durutalo and Ben Pinkleman.

Wales suffered a narrow 12-10 defeat to South Africa despite tries from Luke Morgan and Owen Jenkins but had another shot at qualification to the main draw for the first time since the Sydney tournament with the winless Kenya in their last game.

But it wasn’t to be as, despite tries from Owen Jenkins, James Benjamin and Joel Jenkins, they went down 28-17 and finished last in Pool A.