England End on a High

England’s stand-in skipper Mike Tindall hailed his side’s victory against Ireland as ‘massive’ after inflicting Ireland their fourth consecutive defeat from their summer friendlies. Tries from Manu Tuilagi and substitute Delon Armitage were enough to give England a comfortable looking 20-9 victory, although the reality was a touch different. While England may have had the upper hand for much of the match, the Irish did test their opponents defence with a series of attacks in the second half. Those looking towards the Rugby 2011 world cup betting should bear this in mind.

In what was a stop-start match, punctuated with a string of blatant penalty offences from both teams, it was England who won both the attacking and defensive battles though. Manu Tuilagi enhanced his growing reputation with another try scoring performance in an England shirt, breaking through a weak Irish defence in as early as the sixth minute to give the away side the advantage.

The Leicester Tiger looked dangerous throughout the match and now looks set to maintain his spot alongside Tindall in the centres. The 20-year old took his try well and could have had another if he had been able to finish off his interception in the closing stages of the first-half. Substitute Armitage got on the end of a Mike Tindall grubber-kick in the second half to score England’s second try, extending the visitors lead.

Ireland never managed to breach England’s staunch defence, even failing to take advantage of when the visitors were down to 14 men for 10 minutes, Chris Ashton sin-binned following a string of infringements from Martin Johnson’s men. That defence was the reason England claimed the victory, according to skipper Tindall, the centre delighted to finish the squad’s World Cup preparations on a high. It will be interesting to see how this game affects the Rugby betting odds.

"It's massive, especially a win here. Credit to our defence, I thought it was outstanding today. Whatever they hit us with we kept hitting them back and that's credit to the boys.”