England v Samoa: Red Rose to stop rot with hefty Samoa win
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England are coming in for pelters after five straight Test losses, but when you consider four of those arrived against an extraordinary All Blacks outfit and latterly a seasoned South African side rated second in the world, context is key.
Yet, if Stuart Lancaster’s charges are to win the World Cup on home soil in 2015, they’ll have to be beating these top sides.
However, with only a three-point margin of defeat in either Autumn International against the aforementioned duo, there is plenty of scope to believe a rousing win over Samoa is next in the pipeline.
Previous clashes against pacific islanders in the last decade have seen England exactly double the score of their opponents en-route to comfortable victories – most recently coming out 26-13 winners in 2010.
Samoa will be no pushovers, but from their last seven Tests they have only scored more than 20 points once and that was against Canada – 16th in the world rankings.
There will be plenty of attacking invention In England’s new-look back-row where Bath’s George Ford operates at number 10 and fellow playmaker Owen Farrell shunts to inside-centre.
If the English could rack up 28 points against the Springboks then the Samoans should be soundly beaten.
This bet would have landed in both of England’s previous meetings with Samoa this decade and again in their last two matches against Test sides outside the top seven in the world rankings.
Scotland, currently eighth, and Argentina (ninth) were the opponents while Stephen Betham’s Samoan side reside in 12th ahead of the Twickenham clash.
Is there a better breaker of the line than England’s marauding full-back? Even against a defence as steely as South Africa’s, the Harlequins flyer constantly broke the shackles in midfield, though a try has now eluded the number 15 since he went over twice during England’s rout of Italy to sign off the Six Nations.
Brown’s due another score, and it should come against the Samoan tourists.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.
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