Rugby World Cup 2015: Winners and Losers from England vs. Fiji

England's World Cup is up and running after a 35-11 win over Fiji on opening night.

It was far from polished from Stuart Lancaster's men, as a well-organised Fijian defence stifled much of the hosts' attacking attempts out wide.

Handling errors pock-marked the contest—as well as a spate of video referrals—and England never looked like scoring the fourth try for a bonus point; that finally came with the last act of the evening.

Lots to work on back at Pennyhill Park for Lancaster and his coaches, but England have the win.

Here are your winners and losers.

It took Mike Brown quite some time to recover from that sickening knockout he suffered in the 2015 Six Nations.

The side effects of Brown's concussion lingered long after that collision against Italy.

But Lancaster knew that after the right amount of recovery time, Brown would be his first-choice No. 15.

And the Harlequins man proved why, with a Man of the Match performance in this World Cup curtain-raiser.

Brown was on hand to score England's second try after a botched Fijian lineout and then finished well for his brace after grabbing Owen Farrell's pop pass from the deck.

He then sparked England's hunt for their bonus-point try, with a snaking run through tiring Fijian tacklers, that got his side back into the red zone.

And the hat-trick was nearly his after picking a wonderful line off a Sam Burgess pass, but a tap tackle brought him down before the line.

Brown was England's best attacker and may well have proved Burgess' worth to this team. The rugby league convert straightened up the English attack when he came on, and Brown was clever enough to start running lines to make the most of the newcomer's sense of direction. 

It's a bold decision to throw to the tail of your lineout when five metres from your own line.

It's also a daft one when you do it and you don't have a player standing there.

Fijian hooker Sunia Koto got his throw badly wrong midway through the first half and presented the ball straight to England's Tom Wood.

One ruck later, the ball was shoveled wide to Mike Brown, and England had their second try of the night.

The Fijians require more set-piece work if they want to stop gifting tries to their opponents.

Part of the reason England endured so much frustration was Fiji's commitment to the tackle area.

They won 11 turnovers during the contest, many of them from rucks, and ruined many of England's attacking positions.

Tiredness in the final 10 minutes saw England start to get some offloads away, such as the two that led to Mike Brown's second try.

But the Fijians showed they are organised and instilled with a greater defensive discipline than perhaps they might have been in previous generations.

The use of video replays for a growing number of incidents may just prove to be a blight on this World Cup.

Player protection is an important and admirable policy, but halting play for minor offences, such as those we saw highlighted in the first half, will have a lot of spectators missing the last train home at this rate.

A suspect tackle on Jonny May and a shoulder charge by Fiji's Api Ratuniyarawa were both brought to the referee's attention and resulted in penalties after much deliberation over what to do. It's boring.

Then we had the fiasco over Niko Matawalu's "try," which also highlighted an issue with the way the TMO is used.

Referee Jaco Peyper awarded the scrum-half the score after his searing break from a scrum upfield, and Fiji were about to attempt the conversion until the official caught sight of a replay on the stadium's big screen.

The crowd roared its disapproval of what appeared to be a knock-on by Matawalu, and only then did the South African whistle-blower decide to have another look.

Ultimately, it was proved that there had been a knock-on, but there has to be a point after an initial decision has passed that a referee can no longer ask for help from the man with his finger on the slow-mo button.

One wonders what Peyper would have done had that replay been shown on the big screen after the conversion had been slotted.

As Sir Clive Woodward opined in the ITV studio at half-time: "Once you give the try, it’s got to be given; it’s done."

As if that wasn't frustrating enough, Fiji's next attack brought a well-worked try for Nemani Nadolo that was finished no more than five yards in front of the touch judge.

He had a better view of a perfectly valid try than any seat in the house, and when asked by the referee to validate it, he didn't feel able to say "yes" and suggested yet another look at the replay.

Welsh rugby legend Jonathan Davies aired his frustration at the lack of decisiveness from the flag waver: 

Ffs tmo! Open your eyes assistant ref!!

— Jonathan Davies (@JiffyRugby) September 18, 2015

 The first half took over 51 minutes, with all these video referrals.

Officials and organisers need to think about this, because games will get stale and viewers will turn off if we have much more of it.

Nemani Nadolo's well-taken try kept one of world rugby's best strike rates bubbling nicely along.

The giant Crusaders man leapt higher than opposite man Anthony Watson to claim Ben Volavola's cross-field kick to make it 16 in 18 games and also struck a penalty with his cultured left foot.

In the second half he chased Watson down as the Bath man fielded a kick, smashed him to the floor and ripped it off him.

Had he nailed his second and third kicks at goal, Fiji would have been breathing right down English necks in the last 20 minutes. OptaJonny noted Nadolo's impressive scoring stat:

16 - Nemani Nadolo has scored 16 tries in his last 18 Tests for #FJI. Finisher.

— OptaJonny (@OptaJonny) September 18, 2015