By Ouseburn(Kath) 29/6/03
June 29 2003

England 'A' stormed to a terrific win against the USA in Vancouver to pick up the inaugural Churchill Cup Trophy. Well it would seem that anything the Senior Squad can do, the England 'A' squad can do also! Such strength in depth now within the 'Team England' set up - its breath-taking.

The only real question being what if something happened to Jonny Wilkinson, who would step up?  Well we have the contenders Grayson, King, Barkley and Walder and it would seem from various other match reports that Walder had a outstanding game today!  So the jury is out on this one for the moment..........

What a successful coaching team, Jim Mallinder and Steve Diamond have proved to be on this trip they have blended the players well and kept a clean sheet throughout.   England coach Jim Mallinder said "We're very happy to have won the first Churchill Cup. We've developed some players during this competition".

England A ran in six tries through Henry Paul, Ben Johnston, Hugh Vyvyan, Pete Anglesea, Phil Greening and Iain Balshaw.

Henry Paul said: "English rugby is on a real high at the moment.  "It doesn't matter whether you're in New Zealand and Australia or over here - it's all about playing well as a squad".

England now travel to Tokyo for two games the first against a Japan Select XV on 3 July and Japan on the 6 July.

However,  England coach  Mallinder refused to get complacent, saying: "Three from three - you can't ask for anything more than that, but we set out our goals from the outset and that's winning all five games; that is our number one priority.

"We have got two tough games in difficult humid conditions; we don't know much about Japan so the challenge is there for us."

It would seem on performances up to now that Peter Anglesea, Hugh Vyvyan, Dave Walder and Henry Paul are pushing real hard to get into that 30 man squad going down under for the World Cup in October.  What an exciting affair this is!

Aagghhhh Soooooo here we go, off now to Japan!  This is Ouseburn saying Sianara.................

 

England: Balshaw (Bath); Cueto (Sale), Johnston (Saracens), Paul (Gloucester), Simpson-Daniel (Gloucester); Walder (Newcastle), Wood (Wasps); Sheridan (Bristol), Titterrell (Sale), Green (Wasps), Brown (Bristol), Codling (Harlequins), Anglesea (Sale), Hyde (Leeds), Vyvyan (Capt., Newcastle).

United States: Wilfley; Timoteo, Keyter, Nicolau, Emerick; Cross, Kjar; Tarpoff, Griffin, Waasdorp, Parker, Gross, Gouws, Fifita, Hodges (Capt.,)