England, down to 14 men within three minutes of the kick-off, put in a performance of guts, determination and poise to beat Argentina 27-10 in their highly anticipated World Cup opener here in Marseille last night.
Man-of-the-match George Ford scored all of his side’s points – six penalties and three dropped goals – in a victory which has transformed the mood in the England camp.
Ford said: “The drop-goals are always planned, it is a great weapon for us, especially when the ball is a bit greasy like it was tonight. We went down a man early on and had to come away from as many points when we had field position. The boys up front were incredible to get us into that field position.
“It’s never about one individual. We’re a close-knit team. We have had a bit of a rocky build-up to this World Cup but I think in the last 10 days there has been a different feeling to the place. It is only game one and we will look to build next week. Winning the first game is always a good thing for us, against a quality team like Argentina. Again, it’s only the first game. We’ve got some tough games to come. We’re in a position where we want to keep improving.”
Head coach Steve Borthwick was clearly delighted with the turnaround. He said: “I enjoy this job, I enjoy working with this group of players. They’re a fantastic group and I’m really pleased for them tonight. I’m also pleased for the supporters. I said there was going to be a lot of English supporters in the crowd, and there certainly was. The team loves the supporters, and they really benefited from the way they got behind us tonight.”
“George was magnificent. Tonight was a great example of the leadership in this England team. There was a feeling from the players that they’d been written off a bit too early … it’s a quality group of players who are going to keep improving. I think we’re going to move forward to Japan … but I hope they’re enjoying it in the pubs at home. But the players deserve to enjoy this tonight. We have got a quality group of players. There is a lot of experience and the players showed that. ”
On Curry’s sending off, Borthwick said: “Each incident is different. We’ll have a good look at it. It will go through a disciplinary process now and it would be wrong for me to start commenting on it.”
Curry’s red for a head-on-head with Argentinean full-back Juan Crux Mallia was England’s fourth this year after Freddie Steward, Owen Farrell and Billy Vunipola all got sent off since March.
Argentina boss Cheika added: “Ford played the cards nicely in those scenarios. It was well managed, full credit to them. They didn’t let us get any flow into our game and Ford was big part of that. That is something we will need to fix up.”
The king of drop goals, Jonny Wilkinson, whose three-pointer won the World Cup two decades ago was left stunned by Ford’s efforts.
Wilkinson said: “Drop goals are hard. Three drop goals before half-time. That’s certainly nothing I have ever done.”
