One day England’s dominance in the Women’s Six Nations will come to an end. Their 28-game winning streak in the tournament will be broken. But Ireland could not stop England on a windy day.
The Red Rose’s stranglehold has long been talked about and it was evident in their effort to score a bonus point with 14 tries before 20 minutes.
England have been professional longer than any other team and although other countries are slowly closing the gap, it will take time for that to show on the scoreboard.
“I’m sure people will talk about competitiveness, but ultimately we’ll push it ourselves,” England coach John Mitchell said. “That’s all we can focus on. I don’t think we can judge competition or competitiveness. What we can really focus on is how we prepare and our standards have improved.
Not only did England dominate the result, they also topped the crowd, with an impressive 48,778 fans here. Young fans with their faces painted with England flags and roses overheard discussions on the train focusing on Mary Parker’s return to the starting line-up and the streets were packed. This has become an annual occurrence for the Red Roses, and their momentum shows no signs of slowing down.
England were dealt a blow before kick-off with Rosie Galligan ruled out with a thumb injury sustained in the warm-up. Morwenna Talling was promoted from the bench, with Lizzie Hanlon making her debut. This didn’t seem to affect the team’s performance, which was one of their best in recent memory.
They opened the scoring through Abby Dow after Sadia Kabeya’s clever offload and they were on pace again shortly afterwards. Natasha Hunt cut through the defense and unloaded before adding her second try inside three minutes. The floodgates had opened and Britain was quickly disappearing from view. Megan Jones and Zoe Aldercroft ended before Ireland could score their first points. Dana O’Brien converted the penalty, Ireland’s first goal against England since 2019.
Ellie Kildunne scored the next goal and Dow added the second as England went into the break 38-3 ahead. Sophie Ellis-Bextor put on a first-half performance and England did not spoil the mood in the second half with a fine individual performance from Jesse Breach.
A TMO inspection recognized Cabea’s try, bringing England to 50, but Ireland began to stem the bleeding. Referee Aurélie Groizeleau spotted Lucy Packer illegally knocking down Moore as Ireland tried to break through, and the substitute scrum defender was shown a yellow card and Ireland awarded a penalty. Discipline has been an issue for England and it’s an area that didn’t seem to improve throughout the World Cup.
They were down one player but were the next to score through Jones. Dow and Kildoone were the hat-trick heroes, Breach added another and Maddie Fionati finished the game with her first England goal.
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Ireland head coach and former England attack coach Scott Baymand said: “We may have looked a bit shocked at times. That’s okay, you see teams that turn out to be good teams need to learn how to play the game, whether it’s a semi-final , the final is still a big game.
“Today is an important game for a young team. Would we predict such a margin? Probably not. Unfortunately, it is what it is and there are areas where we can have better control. The age profile of this group will Learned a lot from it and still have the confidence to apply it against Scotland next week.
Ireland will still be aiming for third place and qualification for the 2025 Rugby World Cup. England’s resounding victory keeps their Grand Slam hopes alive. If they beat France next Saturday, they will claim their sixth consecutive title. But France, who were the last team to beat England at the 2018 World Cup, also have their own title ambitions.
