The opening day of the World Rugby U20 Championship 2017 was full of twists and turns with the future stars of world rugby putting on a show of running rugby for fans in Tbilisi, Kutaisi and around the globe.
England sent out an early warning of their intention to win a fourth title in five years with a clinical display against Samoa, scoring 12 tries for a 74-17 victory at Avchala Stadium in the Georgian capital.
It took England only three minutes to cross the line when they spread the ball wide for winger Ali Crossdale to dive over and a yellow card for Samoa's Losi Filipo minutes later didn't help their cause.
England made them pay with tries from captain Zach Mercer, fly-half Max Malins promoted from the bench before kick-off after Theo Brophy-Clews was ruled out – and Alex Mitchell with the bonus point wrapped up inside 22 minutes.
Full-back Ricky Pauli Ene landed his second penalty attempt to get Samoa on the board, but Englnad weren't done yet with centre Dominic Morris charging through before Mercer and impressive winger Gabriel Ibitoye made it 43-3 at half-time.
England didn't let up in the second half with prop Marcus Street dotting down following a driving maul, before Crossdale scored his second, despite appearing to pull his hamstring in the build up.
Another Samoan sin-bin proved costly with second-row Ciaran Knight the player to profit from another England drive, but despite being a man down the U20 Trophy 2016 winners scored their first try through Filipo, replacement Pupi Ah See having been ruled held up only minutes earlier.
Morris and Ibitoye grabbed their second tries of the game, the former limping off with injury after his try, before Samoa finished strongly with Filipo dotting down a second try to give them confidence to take into the next match with Australia.
England captain Zach Mercer: "We had to focus on the first 20 minutes against a real passionate Samoan side. It was the first time the boys faced the haka (Siva Tau). We knew Samoa was going to fire hard for the first 20 so we needed to weather the storm effectively and the boys did that. I’m very proud of boys. We know we got a comfortable win in an 80-minute performance. Now we are looking forward to playing Wales on Sunday."
Samoa head coach Mahonri Schwalger: "We have to look at our kicking game. Today we didn’t have enough ball to play with and we spent a lot of time trying to defend. Other than that when we had ball we looked pretty good but there were a lot of mistakes in decision-making. For the next game we have to improve our decision-making."
The action continues on Sunday with Australia taking on Samoa.