Lancaster full of praise for Brown

It was enough to impress England’s World Cup champion Jonny Wilkinson – who was commentating on the match for English television.

Owen Farrell gave England some room from the tee before Brown’s second sealed the game.

Brown made a splitting run late in the match, where Burgess received the ball after backing up in support – before the code-hopping star returned the favour with a neat offload which almost put Brown over for his hat-trick try.

The bonus point could prove crucial in a so-called “Pool of Death” including Australia and Wales – who England face next – and in Vunipola’s own personal battle with Gloucester Rugby’s Ben Morgan for the No.8 shirt.

However, a constant theme of the Lancaster era has been the competitiveness within the squad and the strength in depth in key areas.

“Wales head coach Warren Gatland will have prepared his game to deal with us, so we’ll be watching them closely on television [Wales play Uruguay on Sunday in their opening game]”.

The build-up is over and England have just a week to improve on their display before Wales visit Twickenham.

“It wasn’t pre-planned, but we felt the momentum was ebbing towards Fiji“, he said in an interview after the game.

They were in touch with their more vaunted opponents during the early stages of the match.

“Three times we got caught out with some of the decisions, but a few times we need to be more patient rather than go for the jugular straight from the off. The Fijian boys did that very well, fair play to them”.

George Ford opened the scoring for the hosts with a penalty in the second minute and England extended their lead 10 minutes later through their first try. “We knew it was always going to be a tough start they don’t get enough credit for being the team they are and with the world class players they have playing all over the world. Bonus points are absolutely invaluable, it puts pressure on sides to go out and get four tries against Fiji”, he added.

“We just have to move on and not play any mind games with the big fella”.

“Nothing concerned us (about the performance) but after that initial five or ten minutes when we weren’t as emotional, we got into our stride a bit”.

Only when Lancaster virtually emptied his bench around the hour mark was there a notable change, with Billy and Mako Vunipola making immediate and direct progress, the team finally building multiple phases that finally had the islanders running out of steam and leaving holes.