Saracens' Owen Farrell enjoyed his return to action while captaining England to a convincing 71-0 Rugby World Cup victory over Chile at Stade Pierre-Mauroy, writes Ziad Chaudry.

The 32-year-old fly-half was suspended from England's opening two Pool D fixtures against Argentina and Japan following his red card during his side’s narrow victory over Wales at Twickenham last month.

Farrell's Sarries clubmate Theo Dan made his first World Cup start against the South Americans and scored two of England’s 11 tries as man of the match Henry Arundell crossed the line five times.

Further tries from Bevan Rodd, Marcus Smith (2) and Jack Willis saw off the Los Cóndores in some style and edged England even closer to securing a quarter-final place in France.

Billy Vunipola, Elliot Daly and Ben Earl were the other Saracens players to feature in the victory in Lille as Farrell added 16 points from the kicking tee.

That left Farrell on the brink of breaking Jonny Wilkinson's England all-time scoring record, sitting on 1178 points, just shy of the 1179 scored by the 44-year-old who was part of England’s 2003 Rugby World Cup-winning squad.

“It is always enjoyable to pull on an England shirt but to win in the fashion we did playing some good stuff was good fun,” Farrell told ITV Sport.

“I thought we settled into it after that first half. We went a good few minutes without anything but I thought our attitude was great throughout. We showed some good variety and hopefully can kick on from here.

"We want to keep progressing on everything, we want to be a better team. There was a lot of changes and I think this team took a step forward as it has done the past few weeks.

"It has put us in good stead. We will enjoy this but we go into a break now and we'll come back raring to get better.”

England head coach Steve Borthwick, 44, the former Saracens lock added: “I’m pleased with the progress with the team throughout the tournament.

“I think the team is building as I said they would. I think everybody has come through the game fit and healthy so we’ll have 33 players available in good condition and that will able us to train properly and build into the Samoa game.”

Pool D rivals Argentina got themselves back into quarter-final contention as Sarries duo Juan Martin Gonzalez and Lucio Cinti both featured in their 19-10 success over Samoa, who included Theo McFarland.

Nick Tompkins played a key role and scored a try as Wales claimed an outstanding 40-6 victory over Australia in Lyon on Sunday to seal their quarter-final place, while Marco Riccioni started in Italy's 38-17 win over Uruguay in Nice

Meanwhile, in the women’s international at Exeter's Sandy Park, Saracens' Marlie Packer was among the try scorers and teammates Jess Breach and Rosie Galligan were also involved in England’s 50-24 victory over Canada.

The two sides meet again at the StoneX Stadium home of Saracens this weekend, with the match being streamed live on England Rugby's YouTube and Facebook channels.