England ends winning drought against jolly Japan

MATCH REPORT: England ended a five-game losing streak with a nine-try demolition of Japan as Eddie Jones’ return to Twickenham ended in a 14-59 loss on Sunday.

Jamie George and Luke Cowan-Dickie each scored two tries as England eased the pressure on coach Steve Borthwick.

Ben Earl, Sam Underhill, Ollie Sleightholme, George Furbank and Tom Roebuck also crossed as the home side bounced back from defeats to New Zealand, Australia and South Africa earlier this month.

Jones had a rollercoaster spell as England boss between 2015 and 2022.

The outspoken Australian is now in his second spell in charge of Japan, but his inexperienced side never looked capable of springing an upset despite twice exposing gaps in the England defence to score through Naoto Saito and Kazuki Himeno.

Borthwick badly needed a win to calm speculation over his future heading into the Six Nations.

England burst out of the traps as Earl and Underhill crossed inside the first 13 minutes.

The hosts’ extra power up front delivered two more quickfire scores as captain George powered over twice from a driving maul.

Sleightholme then added a fifth try before half-time with a brilliantly executed kick and chase to the line.

Furbank scored England’s sixth try but it owed much to a stunning behind the back pass from his Northampton team-mate Tommy Freeman.

Cowan-Dickie replaced George early in the second half and picked up where his skipper left off with two tries in five minutes.

Roebuck then showed good strength and fleetness of foot to run in his first international try.

Marcus Smith added 14 points with the boot with seven successful conversions to end a challenging Autumn on a positive note.

The scorers

For England
Tries: Earl, Underhill, George 2, Sleightholme, Furbank, Cowan-Dickie 2, Roebuck
Cons: Smith 7

For Japan
Tries: Saito, Himeno
Cons: Saito, Matsunaga

Teams

England: 15 George Furbank, 14 Tommy Freeman, 13 Ollie Lawrence, 12 Henry Slade, 11 Ollie Sleightholme, 10 Marcus Smith, 9 Jack van Poortvliet, 8 Ben Earl, 7 Sam Underhill, 6 Tom Curry, 5 George Martin, 4 Maro Itoje, 3 Will Stuart, 2 Jamie George (captain), 1 Ellis Genge.
Replacements: 16 Luke Cowan-Dickie, 17 Fin Baxter, 18 Asher Opoku-Fordjour, 19 Nick Isiekwe, 20 Chandler Cunningham-South; 21 Harry Randall, 22 Fin Smith, 23 Tom Roebuck.

Japan: 15 Takuro Matsunaga, 14 Tomoki Osada, 13 Dylan Riley, 12 Siosaia Fifita, 11 Jone Naikabula, 10 Nicholas McCurran, 9 Naoto Saito (captain), 8 Faulua Makisi, 7 Kazuki Himeno, 6 Kanji Shimokawa, 5 Epineri Uluiviti, 4 Sanaila Waqa, 3 Shuhei Takeuchi 2 Mamoru Harada, 1 Takato Okabe.
Replacements: 16 Seunghyuk Lee, 17 Yukio Morikawa, 18 Keijiro Tamefusa, 19 Daichi Akiyama, 20 Tevita Tatafu, 21 Ben Gunter, 22 Shinobu Fujiwara, 23 Yusuke Kajimura.

Referee: Craig Evans (Wales)
Assistant referees: Andrea Piardi (Italy) & Morné Ferreira (South Africa)
TMO: Olly Hodges (Ireland)