Stuart Lancaster's new England stormed to victory this weekend. Celebrating could be heard across the Princes street hotels Edinburgh as they won in Murrayfield.
There were three new caps in the XV which started, and eight in total within the squad. As Lancaster aimed to establish unity amongst the team, the whole group of 22 of them worked together to drive them to victory in what was actually quite a drab afternoon. The victory was very important to them as they wanted to shake off recent events in New Zealand. Now that the team have played, the team selection is expected to be much more critical as Lancaster will have to aim between choosing stability and confidence in this team which is so young.
In the second row, Mouritz Botha introduced himself in international rugby as he sacrificed his own wellbeing in the firing line for defence, whilst Tom Palmer showed his weaknesses when running the lineouts. This meant that like England's 2010 pre-Christmas internationals, Luis Deacon was asked to come back in. Palmer will not have to better his game when playing Italy soon. In the back row, England were sharing all the jobs of a six, seven and eight across just three players.even thought this gave the best defence, it also made them vulnerable for when the opposition team attacked down the central channel as the first and had a major surge off the back of a scrum when Cole had got the right-hand side up.
Eyes will now be on the team to see if they can repeat the success when they play Italy later this month (February 2012). They are also set to return to Murrayfield for a series of friendlies so be sure to book into a Murrayfield hotel to catch them play. Only time will tell if Lancaster’s England team really will be able to play it out of the park this season.
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