England have been confirmed as winners of their World Cup pool with a match to spare, making them the second team to officially qualify for the quarter-finals by virtue of Japan’s victory over Samoa on Thursday night.
Steve Borthwick’s side complete their pool stage campaign against Samoa in Lille next week but can already set about finalising plans for their quarter-final in Marseille the week after.
England have beaten Argentina, Japan and Chile so far and though it would have taken an unlikely sequence of events for them to fail to qualify, Borthwick can take pleasure in his side becoming only the second team after Wales to rubber-stamp their place in the last eight. He will be even more pleased given England’s desperate warm-up campaign in which they lost three of their four matches to Wales, Ireland and Fiji.
Japan’s failure to clinch a bonus point against Samoa ensures England top the pool and a rematch with Fiji may well await in the last eight, with the Pacific Islanders on course to finish second in their group. A bonus point win for Fiji over Georgia on Saturday would make sure of their first place in the quarter-finals since 2007 – and their third in the history of the competition – and eliminate Eddie Jones’s Australia in the process.
England could also meet Wales or even Australia in the last eight, but it was in all likelihood a prescient remark by Borthwick after England’s historic defeat by Fiji at Twickenham last month when he said: “Fiji are a good side and there’s a chance we meet them again.”
Wales, meanwhile, are likely to face the winner of Japan’s match against Argentina next week. The Pumas are expected to comfortably beat Chile on Saturday to set up a showdown with the Brave Blossoms in Nantes next Sunday.
