Rugby Union

England VS Australia Match Highlights

The Wallabies have tasted defeat once again to end their 2016 season in disappointment, after being trashed to a 37-21 win by England on the grounds of Twickenham. Australia has now lost a record nine-time during this year while England equalled its record winning streak of 14 successive wins that was recorded back in 2003 by the World Cup winning team under the management of Sir Clive Woodward.

Australia looked all set to take their revenge for their defeat this summer, as England looked quite shaky at the beginning of the match. The Wallabies quickly grabbed a 10-0 lead that was triggered by a penalty of Bernard Foley and this was quickly followed up by a converted try of Sefa Naivalu.

After two penalties converted by Owen Farrell and a try converted by Jonathan Joseph, England somehow found themselves with a score of 13:10 up. However, at halftime, the Wallabies were well in the lead after two more penalties by Bernard Foley.

We saw a completely different England team throughout the second half, and it certainly seems that they had been re-energised during the short break. Ben Youngs and Marland Yarde crossed while two additional conversions along with a penalty were converted by Farrell.

This didn’t deter Australia from fighting back, with prop Sekope Kepu, but with his second try of the match Jonathan Joseph secured the win for England. This certainly has been one of the most brilliant year for the England rugby team.

Eddie Jones squad did everything possible to break the Wallabies mentally and physically, and they have certainly achieved their goals in doing so, while they have looked quite feeble in the first half. Foley could not convert a simple penalty in the opening minutes while a try for Tevita Kuridrani was ruled out after a knock on from Pocock.

Kuridrani got his chance after mistakes from Mike Brown and Farrell. After the worst start that they could have thought, England finally bounced back into life while Australia looked just a pale shadow of what their side had shown in the first half.

Michael Cheika, the Wallabies’ boss said that he felt pretty disappointed with his team performance and conceded that they needed to show more mettle in after the halftime. He also mentioned that a rugby match cannot be won just by playing good for 40 minutes, and that his squad need to clean up on many of their errors that they made during this match. It certainly looks like they require more consistency to be back into winning form.

England will now end the year 2016 unbeaten after this 14th consecutive match win. They surely had a fantastic year after winning the Six Nations Grand Slam and also dominating the Aussies in the summer.