Will of the Week - By George we're off to a winning start
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June 9, 2008

In Will Skinners latest diary enrty he applauds England Saxons great start to the Barclays Churchill Cup.

If someone had told me at the start of the tournament that we we'd win our first game by 64-10, I would certainly have taken that.

There's no doubt we have very strong squad and we knew we were capable of scoring tries. But the USA have improved a lot over recent years, and in Nigel Melville and Scott Johnson they've got two very experienced guys in charge.

As well as the scoreline I was really pleased with the way we all came together and produced a good team performance on the day.

Jordan Crane got the man of the match award but there were a number of contenders. In the forwards I thought both Georges were excellent. George Chuter had a great game and George Skivington showed an impressive turn of pace to make a few breaks, one of which led to his try and one set up Ant (Anthony Allen).

Two of the new boys, Matt Banahan and Ben Foden, scored on their debuts too, but Nick Lloyd wasn't so lucky. He hurt his knee in the first 10 minutes and had to go off so we're just waiting to see how he goes.

The squad went out for a few beers afterwards to celebrate. It's become a bit of a tradition for the new caps to sing a song. Ben Foden used to be in a boyband so he was well up for it. But the others weren't so keen so that didn't get off the ground.

Apart from Nick, everyone's in one piece save for a few bumps and bruises. After a recovery session yesterday morning, we spent most of the day travelling to Toronto. Our hotel in Toronto is down town so most of the boys went out for a bit of a walk yesterday evening, just to stretch the legs and get something to eat. One of the best things about being over here is the Canadian diners, we found one called Fran's that does great ribs and milkshakes.

I'm rooming with my Quins team mate Tom Guest and we were both glad of an early night. We room together quite a lot when we have club away games so we both know we're not the tidiest! I'm usually quite good at home but our hotel room looked dreadful last week, we ended up with kit everywhere. I'd like to say this week will be better but we'll have to see on that one.

We're spending this morning going through the DVD of our game to highlight the areas we need to work on before next weekend's game against Ireland A. We're lucky to have a week between games. The USA play Ireland on Wednesday night so we'll be looking forward to see how that game goes.

Cheers

Will

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