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On this day: England break records in Romania thrashing

Thirteen years ago today, England scored 134 unanswered points during an international clash against Romania.

When asked to identify the sport in question with a scoreline of 134-0, many would plump for cricket, believing that it was a decent stand from the opening batsmen.

However, back on this day in 2001, 134 was the exact number of unanswered points that the England rugby union side put on the board when Romania made the trip to Twickenham.

During the 1980s, the Romanians had been an emerging force, having lost 22-15 to England, as well as recording a victory over Wales. Yet, the deterioration of the political and economic situation in the Eastern European nation hit the rugby team hard.

Even so, the 61,000 people in attendance were probably not expecting to see records tumble at the rate that they did in West London.

In total, England ran in 20 tries, which was a national record. That helped them to reach a tally of 134, which surpassed the record 110 points that they scored against Holland three years earlier.

Individually, Jason Robinson ran in four tries, but the afternoon belonged largely to debutant Charlie Hodgson. The Sale fly-half contributed 44 points - including two tries - on his own, which was a greater individual tally than any of his compatriots had previously made.

It could have been even better for Hodgson when Dan Luger ran in his third try of the contest in the final minute. Had Hodgson scored the resultant conversion, he would have surpassed the world record of 45 points set by New Zealand's Simon Culhane in 1995, but his effort struck the post.

Also among the tries for Clive Woodward's England was Mike Tindall (2), Lewis Moody (2), Austin Healey (2), Mark Regan, Alex Sanderson and Joe Worsley.

Rugby matches certainly are not meant to reach three figures, as the Twickenham scoreboard highlighted. When England reached the 100-point park, there was no room on the board for a third digit!

ENGLAND: Robinson; Cohen, Greenwood (Catt), Tindall, Luger; Hodgson, Healey (Bracken); Rowntree, Regan, Leonard (White), Kay (Grewcock), Borthwick, Moody, Back (Sanderson), Worsley

ROMANIA: Brezoianu; Teodorescu, Dobre, Oprea (Toderasc), Ghioc; Tofan, Sarbu (Dragomir); Dima (Ciolacu), Balan, Socaciu, Nedelcu (Dragomir), Petre, Corodeanu, Samuil (Codea), Petrache (Monteanu)

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Liam Apicella
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