Rugby Union: Greenwood shines as leader

England A 52 Scotland A 17

Will Greenwood's one-man campaign to make life almost unbearably awkward for Jack Rowell and the rest of the England hierarchy reached new heights yesterday as the national second-string put eight tries past Scotland A, who had themselves done something very similar to Wales only a fortnight ago.

The Leicester centre captained the A team for the first time at the Stoop Memorial Ground and, judging by the absolute pearl of a performance he produced yesterday, he was born to lead. The next time he plays a representative game in West London, it may well be across the road at Twickenham.

Before that can happen, however, Rowell has either to rewrite the laws of arithmetic by fitting four centres into two positions, or instigate a cull of his sacred-cow contingent. Jeremy Guscott, on the bench behind Phil de Glanville and Will Carling in today's Calcutta Cup match, is officially next in line, but Greenwood, seven years younger and as hungry as they come, is galloping up on the rails.

He started with a rush, blowing away an Eric Peters tackle 25 metres out and striding imperiously to the line without another hand being laid upon him. For the rest of the half he contented himself with some slide- rule passing, repeatedly ushering the fast and elusive Nick Beal into dangerous holes behind the first wave of Scottish defence.

With the game virtually won at the break - England went in 18-5 ahead - Greenwood moved up another notch and made the Scots pay for some less than vintage tackling. He did not add to his personal tally, but his beautifully weighted pass in the build-up to Beal's try on 41 minutes and his imaginative backhand flip to send Tony Diprose over at the posts 17 minutes later were reward enough.

Beal turned in a display at full-back that suggested he might push Tim Stimpson all the way for a regular England place while Kyran Bracken looked back to his best at scrum-half and very nearly made a mockery of Rowell's decision to drop him from the bench for today's main event.

The Scots, outgunned up front, still managed three tries, two of them falling to the full-back, Derrick Lee. But their day ended even more badly than the score suggested with Andy Nicol being taken off on a stretcher with a serious elbow injury.

England A: Tries Bracken 2, Greenwood, Beal, Luger, Diprose, Adebayo, Sheasby; Conversions King 3; Penalties King 2. Scotland A: Tries Lee 2, Peters; Conversion Welsh.

ENGLAND A: N Beal (Northampton); A Adebayo (Bath), W Greenwood (Leicester, capt), N Greenstock (Wasps), D Luger (Harlequins); A King (Wasps), K Bracken (Saracens); K Yates (Bath), R Cockerill (Leicester), J Mallett (Bath), G Archer (Newcastle), D Sims (Gloucester), C Sheasby (Wasps), A Diprose (Saracens), N Back (Leicester). Replacement: J Mallinder (Sale) for Luger, 49.

SCOTLAND A: D Lee (Watsonians); C Glasgow (Heriot's FP), P Rouse (Dundee), D Hodge (Watsonians), J Craig (West of Scotland); S Welsh (Hawick), A Nicol (Bath); J Manson (Stirling County), G Bulloch (West of Scotland), P Wright (Melrose), S Campbell (Melrose), S Grimes (Watsonians), E Peters (Bath), C Hogg (Melrose, capt), M Wallace (GHK). Replacements: S Lang (Heriot's) for Craig, 50; I Fairley (Kelso) for Nicol, 60.

Referee: C Hawke (New Zealand).

Faced with the threat of the aborted World Rugby Championship, the South African Rugby Football Union spent 57m rand (almost pounds 8m) last year to keep its top players. A financial statement issued yesterday showed Sarfu gave 33m rand to provincial unions and spent another 24m to put national players under contract.