Vunipola pleased to earn Rugby World Cup spot
Englands Billy Vunipola gets tackled by Wales Ross Moriarty - Credit: PA Wire/PA Images
Saracens Billy Vunipola earned his prize ticket of being included in Eddie Jones’ 31-man England World Cup squad after playing an inspirational role during the 33-19 victory over Six Nations champions Wales at Twickenham.
The 26-year-old began the scoring for the hosts on four minutes after bulldozing over the line for the first of three first-half tries.
Further penalties from George Ford and a drop goal from new Saracens recruit Elliot Daly three minutes from time denied the Welsh a 15th straight win and the world number one spot.
Daly, along with fellow Sarries team-mates Jamie George, Maro Itoge, George Kruis, Jack Singleton, Owen Farrell and Mako Vunipola, were also included in the England squad to compete in the forthcoming tournament in Japan.
And Vunipola praised his colleagues saying: "Today was the perfect example of a game that could have gone away from us.
"We stayed in the fight and we managed to come out with the win but you can never read too much into these warm-up games.
"I know everyone's been calling them 'Tests' and they are Tests but Wales under that pressure probably perform to their peak level.
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"We played well in patches but there's still room for improvement. Having a structured game probably suits us more than unstructured and I think for most of that game we stuck to it. There were times when Wales crept into it but they are a great side and that's always going to happen.
"The most pleasing thing is that we stayed on top of it and made sure we didn't lose proper control of it."
