Massacre at Twickenham a pointless exercise

By TIM GLOVER in London

England 70 Canada 0

For what it's worth, England, with a new head coach in Andy Robinson and a new captain in Jason Robinson, overpowered Canada by five goals and seven tries to nil. What, exactly, is the point of such a one-sided exercise?

The Rugby Football Union cannot fool all of the people all of the time, and yesterday only 41,784 people bothered to travel to Twickenham.

The law of diminishing returns applies even when the scoreboard is in almost perpetual motion.

A sponsor had offered Canada a $100,000 bonus for a win here, but they could have added as many noughts as they liked, safe in the knowledge that foregone conclusions are alive and well. Everybody knew the Maple Leaf was heading for a fall this autumn. Last June, England A put 48 points on the Canadians in Calgary, which was not a huge surprise. But then last week Canada conceded six tries and 51 points to Italy, who yesterday conceded 59 to New Zealand.

It was a lovely day for a massacre and England, who said they would employ a policy of zero tolerance however weak the opposition, used the occasion to stimulate the taste buds, not only of the patrons of a half-empty stadium but, more importantly, some of the players who have been given a chance to impress Andy Robinson before the sterner tests against South Africa and Australia.

Charlie Hodgson, filling the boots of the injured Jonny Wilkinson, showed his footballing skills, in particular with a solo try and a cross-kick for Josh Lewsey that was so perfect even Jonny - a spectator yesterday - could not have improved upon it.

The department in which Hodgson was kicking himself was his below-par goal-kicking. At half-time it was 32-0, Hodgson converting one of the six tries.

The man with the unenviable task of marking Lewsey was David Moonlight from the University of Victoria. As the ball from Hodgson hung in the air it was ill met by Moonlight, who was in no position to present a challenge having wandered infield. But then, let's face it, every Canadian had his work cut out.

The encouraging feature for England is that their backs, criticised by Robinson for being too narrow and structured since the World Cup, scored seven tries from the back three, with Jason Robinson getting a hat-trick and Lewsey and Mark Cueto two apiece.

The cliche is that England can only beat what is put in front of them, but test matches worthy of the name are not won by 12 tries to nil and the question remains - how valid an exercise was this for England; or, for that matter, Canada?

* Yesterday, England announced the arrival of more than 33,000 new players to union 12 months after winning the World Cup in Australia.

It represents a 16 per cent growth across all age groups, taking the total number of players in club rugby to more than 230,000.

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