England A welcomed Portugal to Welford Road on Sunday afternoon for what many were hoping would showcase a festival of running rugby and thrilling tries. Whilst an almost 100-point score tally would suggest just that, the reality was something altogether different.
The Portuguese national side is currently in the midst of a thrilling Rugby Europe, where they are building to take on Spain in their Semi-Final next week. With this in mind, the squad selected for this match was very far from the recognisable talents that drew fans in during the World Cup. Instead, it was a mixture of up-and-coming players and fringe players that had to deal with the highly professional English outfit.
Such was the gulf in class between the two sides, there was very little hope in the eyes of the travelling players after the men in white found themselves two tries to the good within the first ten minutes.
From here on, the traffic continued one-way, with only the brilliant individual excellence from Vareiro that broke up the barrage.
Watch the highlights here:
The match finished 91-5 in favour of England A.
England A coach George Skivington said after the match: “There was a void in the opposition and quality of players, but at half time we sat down and were realistic in what we wanted, and challenged ourselves to show character.
“To score that many points is a challenge no matter who you play, but I give credit to Portugal, they stayed in it and fought very hard.
“Considering all Premiership teams defend and attack differently I thought the boys done a great job in getting aligned and if there were any problems they solved them quickly.”
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