By Toby Davis
BRISTOL, England (Reuters) – England battered neighbours Scotland to keep their Women’s World Cup juggernaut rolling on, running in six tries in a lopsided 40-8 victory on Sunday to reach the semi-finals and set a new world record for consecutive test wins.
Kelsey Clifford went over twice while further tries for Morwenna Talling, Abby Dow, Amy Cokayne and Holly Aitchison at Bristol’s Ashton Gate stadium wrapped up a 31st straight win for England and teed up a semi-final with old rivals France.
The tournament hosts, who are unbeaten since their last world record run of 30 wins was ended by New Zealand in the 2022 final, laid down another emphatic marker to their rivals, crossing four times in the first half and then cruising through the remainder of the contest.
Five Aitchison conversions took her points tally for the afternoon to 15 while Scotland’s only dents on the scoreboard came from Helen Nelson’s early penalty and a desperately late try from Rhona Lloyd as their hopes of reaching their first semi-final were crushed.
It was a thoroughly dominant performance by twice world champions England, although there was a minor grumble within the camp that the victory was not by a wider margin, with Scotland’s infringements drawing the ire of home coach John Mitchell.
“The pressure by the team was superb,” he said. “The only little glitch was conceding the line-break late in the game, which is something I don’t really enjoy.
“There was a lot of repeated infringement towards the end so I’m not sure why penalty tries weren’t awarded.”
England’s dominance in this fixture was so emphatic that a Scotland victory was only possible in the wilder fringes of the imagination.
England were on a 27-match winning streak against their neighbours spanning 26 years with the average score in their last 10 meetings showing a near 50-point gap.
While some sporting scripts have to be torn up and rewritten, this one seemed as near to being carved in stone as you could get.
Yet for the briefest of moments it looked as though England, who were without fullback and World Player of the Year Ellie Kildunne due to concussion protocols, could be in for at least a testing afternoon in a familiarly rain-sodden Bristol.
EARLY SCOTLAND PRESSURE
A spell of early Scotland pressure pegged England back on their line and while they could not force it over, Nelson’s close-range penalty gave them a 3-0 lead.
If you can have a turning point after four minutes, that was it, as England then immediately took control.
Clifford spun out of a tackle and burrowed over the line in the 10th minute to put England ahead and when Talling charged onto the ball and bundled over to increase the lead five minutes later, it felt decisive.
A Cokayne try was ruled out for an obstruction at the lineout but that was never likely to be significant.
Dow scored their third try, and her 50th for England, touching down in the right corner, and when a swift break ended with England working the ball inside for Clifford to bundle over for her second try, it was game over.
Aitchison’s third conversion sent the tournament hosts in at the break leading 26-3 and the scoreboard continued to tick over after the interval with Cokayne breaking off from the maul to score England’s fifth try and Aitchison finishing off a well-worked move to increase their lead to 40-3.
England then cruised to the finish line but could not see the game out without offering Scotland a consolation with Lloyd going over in the corner for their only try of the match well after the 80 minutes were up.
While disappointed to be exiting the tournament, Scotland’s departing coach Bryan Easson said they had done what they had set out to accomplish.
“I think what we said we wanted to do, (reach a quarter final) we have done,” he said. “You don’t win quarter-finals the first time. This has to be something that isn’t the end but the start of something.
“We have shown everyone the talent we have.”
(Reporting by Toby Davis, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
