Red Roses run riot to set sights on Grand Slam
England’s path towards regaining the Women’s Six Nations title and a possible Grand Slam was made a lot clearer after a seven-try performance against holders France, including braces from wing Jess Breach and back-row Poppy Cleall.
Captain Sarah Hunter insisted the tournament was far from won but it is difficult to see how amateur sides in Wales and Italy, and Scotland, with their eight professionals, can compete in the remaining fixtures.
“Everyone had this as the decider of the Six Nations; I don’t think you can do that because it would be a disservice to the remaining teams we have to face,” said Hunter.
The Red Roses made short work of the visitors in the opening half, scoring four unanswered tries. It is disappointing for the tournament that the French, who are on parttime contracts, looked so lacklustre for so long, but that was due to how clinical the fully professional England side were.
It is clear that both professionalism and the decision to split the England XVS and sevens programmes benefited the hosts. Emily Scarratt, a sevens returnee, helped through her tactical kicking to dismantle a French side who, unusually, seemed scared to kick.
With Jessy Tremouliere, the world player of the year, missing through injury picked up on sevens duty and Caroline Drouin also out of contention due to being drafted into sevens, France’s back line looked particularly blunt in the first half. This allowed Breach to latch on to a Katy Daley-mclean crossfield kick to score England’s first try after 10 minutes.
Daley-mclean’s subsequent conversion saw her break the 500-point mark, with Jonny Wilkinson and Owen Farrell the only other England players to have scored more points than the 33-year-old former primary schoolteacher.
After Cleall had powered over, prop Vickii Cornborough was shown yellow by referee Tim Baker but, despite this, England continued to have the run of the game, as wing Kelly Smith and Breach both crossed before the interval.
Doncaster’s Castle Park may be a humble venue compared with Twickenham, but the crowd of 4,674 – in a ground with a capacity of 5,000 – is seen as a major boost for the women’s game in England. It was a stand-alone fixture and was an improvement of 1,000 spectators on when the Red Roses played Canada at the same location in November.
“It is quite a compact ground, so you feel like the crowd are with you, and they were living every minute with us. It is brilliant to come to places like this and have a spectator base that is there just for us,” said Hunter.
France can routinely attract crowds upwards of 10,000 in the stadiums of Top 14 clubs, including the record of more than 17,000, set in Grenoble, when France nicked the game by one point last year.
Hunter seemed happy to have gained revenge and believed the key was shutting Les Bleues down from early on.
“France tend to play with a lot of momentum and we stamped that out from the start. We spoke a lot about how we started would be key to dictating the game,” she said.
“We came out and imposed ourselves. It was certainly a physical game, especially when they came into it, but that start for us was so important. We knew we had to get into the game from minute one and not wait for them to come to us.”
France showed the class that saw them beat New Zealand in November as the totemic Safi N’diaye powered over just two minutes into the second half. England replied swiftly via Cleall, before the French got their second through diminutive scrum-half Pauline Bourdon, who moved to 10 for large parts of the second half, directing play well.
After a raft of French substitutions, England seized the game as Saracens prop Hannah Botterman scored, followed by second-row Catherine O’donnell, who was imposing throughout. The visitors had the final say as they secured a bonus-point try through efforts by Bourdon again, and No8 Romane Menager.
Hunter felt the comparably bumpy finish would inspire her side through the rest of the tournament. “We are a bit disappointed with how we finished the game and that will be a real driver of how we go forward in the competition,” she said.
Scores England France Referee