Rugby: Rugby-Wales beat sloppy England 20-9 in World Cup warm-up

CARDIFF (Reuters) -Second half tries from scrumhalf Gareth Davies and centre George North earned Wales a 20-9 victory over error-strewn England in their Rugby World Cup warm-up fixture in Cardiff on Saturday.

England coach Steve Borthwick selected an unfamiliar team and gave several players, including flyhalf Marcus Smith, a chance to impress ahead of naming his World Cup squad on Monday, but few rose to the occasion.

The visitors led 9-6 at halftime and might have been further in front but a combination of poor execution in the Wales 22, not helped by 16 handling errors in the game, and some scrambling home defence kept them at bay.

Wales were much improved in the second period and claimed a morale-boosting victory – their first in five tests in Cardiff – but there was plenty of rust from both sides a month before the start of the World Cup in France.

“Full credit to the boys, we dug in deep and it is nice to be able to perform like that and get the result,” Wales captain Jac Morgan said at the post-match presentation.

“We were aggressive in defence and put pressure on them to win turnovers. We knew we had more in us at halftime and we came out fighting and had more of the ball in the second half.”

Neither side looked comfortable under high kicks, while the scrums turned into a lottery after some early England dominance.

The visitors offered very little on attack in the second half and faded from the contest, another concern for Borthwick.

Smith showed flashes of his mercurial quality with ball in hand, but also moments of indecision and poor execution that will have done little to persuade the coaching team he is the answer at flyhalf.

Having been second best in the opening 40 minutes, Wales scored the first try of the game early in the second period.

Flyhalf Sam Costelow’s cross-field kick was collected by number eight Aaron Wainwright, who slipped the ball to Morgan, and his rampaging run ended with Davies crossing for the score.

The home side were in again just past the hour-mark when North had a simple finish as England were stretched by a Dan Biggar chip that reached Louis Rees-Zammit. Wales spread the play to the right and North crossed.

They thought they had a third try when Rees-Zammit won a sprint to the line but knocked the ball on as he attempted to ground it.

Television Match Official Joy Neville awarded the try but she was over-ruled by on-field referee Nic Berry, who called it a knock-on.

Wales lost hooker Ryan Elias after six minutes with what looked a hamstring issue, a potential blow for coach Warren Gatland, who will only announce his World Cup squad on Aug. 21.

The teams will meet again in a second warm-up at Twickenham next Saturday.

(Reporting by Nick Said in Cape Town, editing by Pritha Sarkar)