Advertisement

Rugby-England's options growing by the week

By Mitch Phillips LONDON, Nov 19 (Reuters) - England coach Eddie Jones knows that to win a World Cup a team needs real strength in depth, so he was delighted by the contributions of a number of fringe players in Saturday's 58-15 victory over Fiji. A match England were always likely to win gave Jones the chance to look at some new faces and shuffle some positions and, much like his entire year in charge, everything he tried seemed to come off. Four players scored their first international tries as England ran in nine, with Semesa Rokoduguni grabbing two in a man-of-the-match performance in his second test, two years after the first. "Roko did really well," Jones told reporters. "It's difficult when you've had a hard personal experience like he did. He was nervous before the game and he played well." Rokoduguni was dumped by previous coach Stuart Lancaster after one game in 2014 but he was not the only man on duty on Saturday looking to shrug off mental scars. Flanker Teimana Harrison was hooked by Jones after 31 minutes against Australia in June and publicly criticised. But helped by a raft of back-row injuries, was given another chance on Saturday and also claimed his first try. Joe Launchbury, another reminding Jones of his talents in the absence of first-choice duo Maro Itoji and George Kruis, also scored two tries, as did Jonathan Joseph after being restored to outside centre, having been dropped last week. Elliot Daly made his first start last week and impressed at centre and was also on the scoresheet from the wing against Fiji. "Daly was really good," said Jones. "He's got good feet and nice awareness, so he's presenting a great option for us. He can play 13 and 11 and I want to see if he can play 15." Alex Goode finally got his chance in the 15 shirt ahead of regular Mike Brown and though he, too, scored his first try, he was probably the one change that didn't come off. Nathan Hughes, Kyle Sinckler and Ben Te'o came off the bench for their second caps, lock Charlie Ewels made his debut and Henry Slade made his first appearance since the World Cup. What's more, with Dylan Hartley and Owen Farrell going off, number eight Billy Vunipola took on the captaincy duties for the first time. "I've got great competition across the board," Jones said, adding that he was not surprised to have won all 11 of his games in charge. "There's talent here and we haven't come anywhere near maximising that talent yet. "We dropped off the intensity today at times and that's the next step towards greatness - to maintain intensity throughout. "But it all takes time. We're only 11 games into what we've started here." (Editing by Ed Osmond, Neville Dalton)