Van Poortvliet makes upbeat admission after England battle past USA

Leader Live

5 days ago

The Leicester Tigers star, 24, was part of Steve Borthwick's team that beat the USA 40-5 in Washington DC on Saturday night to round off a summer clean sweep of victories after an impressive 2-0 win in Argentina.
The match in the American capital kicked off an hour later than planned due to a lightning strike in the area, with the game then halted by a further half an hour on 29 minutes when another struck within 10 miles of the ground when England were 14-0 up.
The disruption followed several similar incidents at the recent Club World Cup in the US, with champions Chelsea's clash against Benfica delayed by nearly two hours after the Portuguese giants endured an even longer disruption against Auckland City.
Scrum-half Van Poortvliet, one of six England try-scorers at Audi Field, admits the stop-start nature of the contest hampered England's fluency but hopes experiencing it as a group will prepare them in case a similar scenario unfolds in the future.
'I've never experience it before,' he said
'Going into a game, warming up, having it cut off then again after 20 odd minutes makes it really hard.
'It definitely does take it out of you a little bit – but it's probably great to have experienced now.
'You never know situations that might happen in big games in the future, so now we've all experienced that it's probably great for us.
'The staff were brilliant but we probably came out a bit slow at the start of the game. But we came out a lot better after the second stoppage.'
Van Poortvliet, Curtis Langdon, Luke Northmore, Cadan Murley, Harry Randall and debutant Gabriel Oghre all scored to make it three transatlantic wins from three and extend England's winning run to seven matches – their longest streak since back in 2020.
Langdon, Northmore and Murley – post-half an hour delay – all dotted down in the opening period that also saw USA fly-half Chris Hilsenbeck pick up a yellow card.
And Van Poortvliet, Randall and Oghre added three more in the second to help England power to victory.
USA grabbed a late consolation through Shilo Klein to give the home fans who remained something to cheer about but England's work was done as they ended their triumphant tour in style.
England will now enjoy their summer break before gearing up for crunch autumn internationals against the likes of Australia and New Zealand at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham.
And Van Poortvliet, England's matchwinner in the second Test against Argentina last weekend, added: 'It was by no means the greatest game to watch today but it's good to end on a win.
'It's been a great few weeks and we wanted to make sure we ended on a high.
'I've loved these few weeks with the lads – it's been an amazing group and it's such good fun.
'We're slightly disappointed with the performance but we're really happy with how the tour's gone in general and to get the win.'
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