Luke McAlister's five penalties helped New Zealand beat Italy 20-6 Saturday for a third straight win on the northern hemisphere tour, but it was the team's least impressive performance so far. Corey Flynn scored the game's only try in the first half for New Zealand, while flyhalf Craig Gower kicked two penalties for Italy. The All Blacks started with an inexperienced side that included three players – Ben Smith, Mike Delany and Tamati Ellison – making their test debuts, and the lack of familiarity was evident from the number of errors and lack of fluency. In Twickenham, Matt Banahan scored England's first try of the season to give his side a 16-9 victory over Argentina Saturday after the team had been booed off the field by its own fans at halftime. The 2.01-meter winger charged over in the corner to finish off England's best move of the match and give manager Martin Johnson a victory which may take the critics off his back for the short term. But England was far from its best and again had to rely on the boot of flyhalf Jonny Wilkinson, who kicked the other points with two penalties, a drop goal and conversion to go with the nine he contributed to last weekend's 18-9 loss to Australia. Johnson admitted that, although the team came up with a victory, the performance was not impressive, especially with a far tougher game against New Zealand to come next Saturday. In Edinburgh, Johnnie Beattie and Graeme Morrison went over for tries as Scotland marked coach Andy Robinson's first game in charge with a 23-10 victory over Fiji. Phil Godman also kicked three penalties and two conversions in what turned out to be a comfortable victory for the Scots at Murrayfield to give former England coach Robinson plenty of encouragement. Fiji replied with a try by Vereniki Goneva and a conversion and penalty by Nicky Little.
