England crush Barbarians at Twickenham

England XV 73 Barbarians 12England rounded off a challenging week by overwhelming the Barbarians 73-12 at Twickenham in a record 10-try rout orchestrated by Danny Cipriani.

Two days after hooker Dylan Hartley was removed from Stuart Lancaster’s World Cup plans for his head-butt on club duty for Northampton, an experimental XV put poor opposition to the sword.

The half-time score alone read a remarkable 45-5 after Christian Wade crossed twice while Marland Yarde, Ed Slater, Jack Clifford and man of the match Cipriani also touched down.

Wade missed out on his hat-trick early in the second half when he inexplicably failed to ground the ball properly having done all the hard work, but he duly produced his third as the final whistle approached.

With Henry Slade, Josh Beaumont and Cipriani claiming further tries there was no respite for the disintegrating Barbarians whose feeble effort turned the afternoon into little more than an opposed training session.

Outstanding fly-half Cipriani was among many to impress in a high-quality England performance, adding to his two tries with one penalty and all 10 conversions in a flawless afternoon that amounted to an individual 33-point haul.

The Barbarians scored tries in each half through Brad Thorn and Thomas Waldrom, but they were victims in a turkey shoot in the latest instalment of this annual fixture.

The only disappointment was the small 34,667 crowd that watched England run riot in the first of four outings before their World Cup opener against Fiji at Twickenham on September 18.

The Barbarians’ promising opening was interrupted by an 11th-minute try for England created by Slade’s flat pass to hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie.

Cowan-Dickie’s hopes of forcing his way into Lancaster’s World Cup thinking improved as he cleverly drew his man before supplying Yarde with the scoring pass.

A brilliant line from Waldrom swept the Barbarians within inches of the whitewash with Thorn arriving to crash over as the lively start continued.

Waldrom then turned sinner, however, when he was sin-binned for tackling Lee Dickson without the ball and England took advantage by driving over from the line-out through Slater.

Slater combined wonderfully with second-row partner Joe Launchbury as the prelude to England’s next score with Elliot Daly creating the space for Clifford to stroll over.

England’s dominance continued as the half-hour mark passed, Yarde grubbering through for Wade to collect and cross.

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