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John Mitchell tackles talk of one-sided Rugby World Cup scorelines
By PA
England head coach John Mitchell played down concerns about a raft of one-sided scorelines at the World Cup as his side seek to secure a quarter-final spot at the earliest opportunity.
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The Red Roses, who are favourites to lift the trophy, launched the competition with a crushing 69-7 success over the United States in Sunderland before Samoa were thrashed 73-0 by Australia in the other opening Pool A fixture.
In a series of uneven encounters, Canada trounced Fiji 65-7, defending champions New Zealand defeated Spain 54-8, Ireland overcame Japan 42-14 and South Africa thumped debutants Brazil 66-6.
Mitchell has made 13 changes to his starting XV for Saturday’s clash with Samoa in Northampton, which is expected to bring another resounding win for the hosts.
Asked if the sizeable margins of victory were a bad look for the tournament, he replied: “I thought it was a fantastic weekend of rugby; it is a 16-team tournament and there are always going to be teams that are more advanced than the others.
“In every World Cup the early stages of the tournament is always against supposedly the classic cliche of minnows.
“I don’t think the scoreboards are important to those teams, it is their identity, and the value in their performance comes in the way they play with their heart and they are trying to make their people back at home proud.
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“Some of those countries are not all rugby countries so they have to start somewhere, so for me it is just the normal cycle of starting a tournament.”
England have won their two previous meetings with Samoa by an aggregate score of 118-3.
The second of those victories – a 65-3 triumph in 2014 – came en route to the Red Roses lifting the World Cup for a second time.
Stand-in captain Marlie Packer, who will lead the team in the injury absence of Zoe Aldcroft, replacement scrum-half Natasha Hunt, and Emily Scarratt, who is not involved this weekend, are the only members of Mitchell’s squad to have previously faced the Pacific islanders.
Wing Claudia Moloney-MacDonald is preparing for a physical battle against the “unknown” at Franklin’s Gardens.
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“Maybe you guys (the media) expect us to win emphatically; I don’t know if we have that same expectation of ourselves,” said the 29-year-old Exeter player, who returns from injury as one of the 13 changes.
“We want to build on that momentum from the previous game up in Sunderland and we want to challenge ourselves to see how good we can be under the pressure that Samoa give us.
“We expect Samoa to be hugely physical, and I think that presents its own challenge.
“It’s a bit of a challenge with the unknown. We’ve obviously seen one game that they’ve played, but at a World Cup you expect every team to give everything against us.”
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