Rugby World Cup 2023: Elliot Daly sees England attacking progress and expects tries

Elliot Daly started for England in their 2019 World Cup final defeat by South Africa

Elliot Daly sees progress in England's attack and expects the team's lack of tries to be rectified in their upcoming Rugby World Cup matches.

Fly-half George Ford kicked all 27 points in their opening pool win over Argentina in Marseille on Saturday.

England have scored only five tries in their past five games but wing Daly is witnessing attacking improvements.

"If we keep getting opportunities we're definitely going to score some tries," he told the Rugby Union Daily podcast.

The 30-year-old added: "I think we are actually creating a lot of opportunities. Especially in that first half, we've gone over a few that we probably didn't quite nail, but the thing now is we're all seeing the picture.

"The way we're seeing the game now is way better than it was when we first came into camp together."

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England attack coach Richard Wigglesworth added: "It's not through lack of them and us saying that isn't important for us. We know we're going to have to convert some opportunities as games go on to put teams under more pressure.

"Every game's different. If you manufacture those opportunities and don't take them, as we saw in a couple of the warm-up games, if you're the better team and you don't make it pay on the scoreboard, when they get their period of pressure and they do [take chances] you come out on the wrong end."

In England's final warm-up defeat by Fiji in August, Jonny May ended a long wait for a back to score since Freddie Steward's consolation try in the Six Nations humiliation by France in March.

Flanker Tom Curry was sent off in under three minutes against Argentina, which Daly believes played a role in England not adding more tries to their record.

"We probably weren't good enough to take them [the early chances], being a number down probably didn't help that, but the way we're seeing the game, the opportunities and the space is only going to be positive for us now," said the Saracens back.

"I'm really excited to see where we can go in the next few weeks and hopefully into the quarter-finals and beyond."

'This performance was coming but we haven't cracked it'

England face Japan on Sunday, with a win likely to secure a spot in the quarter-finals as one of the top two-ranked sides in their pool.

The Brave Blossoms reached the knockouts in 2019 before losing to South Africa in the quarter-finals, and won their opening game in this year's competition against debutants Chile 42-12.

But England will go in with confidence, having endured a difficult build-up, following their win over the Pumas.

Asked about some positive features of the performance against Argentina that had not been as visible in previous matches, Daly said: "It probably has been there in parts I would say, it just hasn't been there for 80 minutes.

"You want to do that in the big tournaments and that's exactly what we did.

"I think we knew this performance was coming, but we know we haven't cracked it.

"There are some brilliant teams out there and Japan are one of those teams. They're very hard to play against so we know we're going to have to be up there again this weekend to get a performance and a result."

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