Two tries key for WCup glory, say England

Scoring two tries and grinding it out from there should be enough to get a team home in the Rugby World Cup, according to England’s attack coach Brian Smith. It may not be pretty, but it works and the World Cup is all about winning, added the former Australian international who switched hemispheres at the end of his playing days.

“We want to win games, that’s what we’re about and we’ve got to play to the conditions to win the games,” he said ahead of their opening match against Argentina in Dunedin on Sunday.

“Sometimes you’ve got to do what’s enough to win the game. It’s more important to get the result than about the style. “Statistically, if you score two tries in Test matches you win the game nine times out of 10 and that’s what you want to try and achieve.” Although he has a backline brimming with talent, and England have unleashed a more expansive game in recent years, that was irrelevant to Smith in a World Cup tournament. “We don’t care how the tries are scored, whether it’s through the pack or the backline,” he said. “We want to be productive.

We want to put the opposition under a lot of pressure so they concede cheap points and if they concede cheap points we’re going to take them.” In Pool B of the Rugby World Cup opening in New Zealand on Friday, England are up against Scotland, Georgia and Romania as well as Argentina — a team boasting a powerful pack of European-based, match-hardened, forwards.

The South Americans have held their own against England in recent series, winning two of the four Tests they have played in the past five years.

In the same period, England have won three, lost two and drawn one against Scotland. A bonus point system is in place for scoring four of more tries in a match, and may be crucial in determining the two quarter-finalists, but for Smith two tries was more of a priority. “Getting carried away with bonus point tries I think is a bit disrespectful to the opposition,” he said. “The most important thing is we get a good start to games. If things go our way and we manage to get on top then we look to try and grind people in the last 20 and if good things happen then that’s terrific.”

In a series where lop-sided pool games can produce high-scoring results, New Zealand have scored the most tries in the six-tournament history of the Rugby World Cup with 232 from 36 matches.

AUCKLAND, Monday (AFP)