England require intensive care to edge past Samoa

LILLE, France :Danny Care scored a late try to give England an 18-17 win over a superb Samoa on Saturday after the islanders had looked on course for a first victory against opponents who were already assured of their World Cup quarter-final berth.

Two tries from winger Nigel Ah-Wong had Samoa leading deep into the match but replacement scrumhalf Care slipped through from the back of a scrum seven minutes from time and Owen Farrell converted to complete the win.

England finished on 18 points. Argentina and Japan, both on nine, meet tomorrow in a shootout for a quarter-final place. Samoa ended on seven, ahead of Chile on zero.

England are likely to meet Fiji in Marseille next week and will need to improve considerably to avoid losing to them again, having done so for the first time at Twickenham in August.

A performance littered with errors was summed up by captain Farrell becoming the first player at the tournament to be timed out by the shot clock as he exceeded the 60-second limit for a straightforward penalty with England trailing by six points.

"It was scrappy, it did not feel like the best from us," said Farrell. "All credit to Samoa and how they came out and got at us, it was tough to deal with at times and we did not deal with it discipline-wise and with mistakes. But I'm happy we found a way to win."

It had started well for England who struck after nine minutes with one of their best tries of the tournament. A fizzing pass by Farrell sent Freddie Steward and Manu Tuilagi clear before lock Ollie Chessum as an unlikely winger finished it off.

Farrell missed the conversion but landed a penalty to overtake Jonny Wilkinson as England’s leading scorer, with 1,181 points and give England an 8-0 lead.

SECOND TRY

Samoa hit back