Nathan Earle scored a hat-trick to help England U20s kick off their Junior World Championship campaign in the best fashion thumping Italy 63-3 in Pukekohe.
The reigning champions were in control all game thanks to a dominant pack and a back line full of pace and power scoring nine tries in total.
Along with Earle’s treble, James Chisholm and Gus Jones both grabbed a brace while Billy Burns, George Catchpole also went over for Nick Walshe’s side.
Captain Callum Braley said: “We’re pleased to kick off our tournament with a win – the scoreline doesn’t reflect what a physical game that was. Italy came pretty hard at us and we really had to step up – we were a bit more clinical in the second half, and we needed to be.
“We’ll learn a lot from this one and look to really push on for our second game against Australia, which we know is going to be a huge match. This tournament is about performing well and getting results, we managed to get the result today but we know that there’s much more to come from us from a performance point of view.”
The first lineout and scrum showed what to expect from England as Ross Moriarty and Harry Sloan made two storming runs through the middle with the second one leading to Sam Olver kicking the opening penalty.
Italy got on the board with a Filippo Buscema penalty but Olver put England back in front straight away with his second before Saracens flyer Earle went over for his first try of the game.
Winning a scrum against the feed, the ball went wide to Aaron Morris who broke through and kicked the ball for Earle to score in the corner. Olver missed the conversion but England were leading 11-3 after 12 minutes.
England’s ascendency continued and London Wasps openside Jones added a second from a well-worked catch and drive while Harlequins No.8 Chisholm made it 23-3 at half-time from a push over scrum.
Keen to put the game out of reach as soon as possible, England kept the pressure on and Earle secured his hat trick in the space of 90 seconds showing great speed once again.
Chisholm and Jones then secured their own double to break the half-century of points by the hour.
England were not done however as, with an eye on their points difference, replacement fly-half Burns and Leicester winger Catchpole rounded up a fine opening display ahead of their pool-deciding clash against Australia on Thursday.
