Henry Arundell enjoyed a ‘surreal’ evening in Lille as he scored five tries in a 71-0 England romp over Chile at the Rugby World Cup.
It may not have been the stiffest of competition, but it was a record-equalling performance from the 20-year-old as no player has ever scored more tries in an England men’s Test.
‘Can’t believe it to be honest, it’s a bit surreal,’ the winger told ITV. ‘I finished that game and thought “how the hell did that just happen?” That shows a real team performance, we’ve really got a lot of depth in this team.
‘We have an aspiration to attack, and we want to score tries and have fun out there.
‘Steve always says find a way to win and today that was finding a way to win. We always want to attack, it’s something we’ve worked on in training and it’s nice to see it pay off in a way like that.’
There were also tries for Theo Dan (2), Marcus Smith (2), Bevan Rodd and Jack Willis, with the returning Owen Farrell kicking eight conversions.
On his return from a four-match ban, Farrell said: ‘I enjoyed it. It’s always brilliant to pull this shirt on, but to do it in the fashion we did today and play some good rugby at times was enjoyable.
‘The energy from the boys who’ve come in, the energy to play as a team – when it can be individual when there’s that many changes to a team – that’s a step forward for us.
‘We showed some good variety and hopefully can kick on from here.’
With three wins from three matches, England are all-but through to the knockout stages ahead of their final group game against Samoa on 7 October.
Arundell said of what’s next: ‘I don’t want to say too cliched, saying we just need to do the next job, but it’s true you can’t get ahead of yourself, really focus on Samoa now and winning the group.
‘The future can be whatever we decide it to be. Work hard when we get into training next week.’
The impressive Smith was taking up a new role at full-back, which he seemed to enjoy as he says it gives him a new take on how the team works.
‘I think it’s just given me a different perspective about the game,’ he said. ‘I understand the difficulties that the outside backs now feel. I understand the frustrations they get when they don’t get the ball.
‘I’ll try and help as much as I can from the back in terms of my communication of where the space is.
‘It’s a pleasure to play alongside those backs who have unbelievable skill and ability to see space. It was a pleasure to be out there.
‘When you’ve got wingers like that who can score tries for fun it makes it very easy for me. It was a pleasure to play with these boys today.’
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