England 80-0 Scotland: Red Roses win Grand Slam and regain Women's Six Nations
Last updated on .From the section Rugby Union
| Women's Six Nations: England v Scotland |
|---|
| England (45) 80 |
| Tries: Beckett, Breach 2, Hunt, Smith, Cleall 2, Cokayne, Bern, Hunter, Scarratt, O'Donnell Cons: Daley-Mclean 8, Scarratt |
| Scotland (0) 0 |
England ran in 12 tries as they crushed Scotland to seal a ninth Six Nations Grand Slam and regain the title.
They outclassed the Scots, scoring six times in the first 26 minutes before Amy Cokayne added a seventh first-half try in the 40th minute.
Another five tries came in the second half in front of a crowd of 13,278 at a drenched Twickenham.
The win gave the Red Roses a 10th Six Nations crown after losing the title to France last year.
"I couldn't be prouder," head coach Simon Middleton said. "They were sensational. It was soul-destroying losing to France last year and we wanted to put that right but we wanted to do that in the right way."
England, the only full-time professional team in the Six Nations, were overwhelming favourites to earn the win they needed against bottom-of-the-table Scotland to complete the clean sweep.
They took the lead in the third minute with Sarah Beckett going over after Poppy Cleall had broken through the Scottish defence.
Jess Breach ran onto a kick from fly-half Katy Daley-Mclean, who also made eight conversions, for the second try three minutes later, before Natasha Hunt went over with a quickly-taken set piece in the 12th minute.
Breach scored her second shortly after, followed by scores for Kelly Smith, Cleall and Cokayne before half-time - the latter coming shortly after Scotland's captain Lisa Thomson was shown a yellow card for a knock on.
Cleall, Sarah Bern, captain Sarah Hunter, Emily Scarratt and Catherine O'Donnell all went over in the second half, with the final try coming despite Daley-Mclean being sin-binned in the 73rd minute.
England a cut above the rest
Ever since England beat defending champions France 41-26 in the second week of this year's Six Nations, they looked likely to go on to win the title.
They have scored more than 50 points in each of the other four matches, with the victory over Scotland, their biggest of the campaign, taking their overall points total to 278.
The Red Roses scored 45 tries in total during the tournament, with nine of those going to impressive 21-year-old winger Breach.
"Every one of us is really proud," said number eight Hunter. "We try our best to inspire the generation that's going to follow us.
"There's no better or special place to win a Grand Slam than the home of English rugby."
England have now won 16 of their last 17 Tests, with their only defeat coming against France in Grenoble last year.
The win over Scotland followed the dramatic draw between the two nations in the men's competition.
England went four years without a title between 2013 and 2016 but their second Six Nations win in three years sees them clearly look the most likely team to challenge world champions New Zealand as the best side in the world.
It is their ninth Grand Slam in the tournament's current six-team format, and they also achieved the feat five times in its previous form as the Home Nations Championship.
Line-ups
England: McKenna; Breach, Scarratt, Harrison, Smith; Daley-Mclean, Hunt; Botterman, Cokayne, Bern, P Cleall, A Scott, Beckett, Fleetwood, Hunter (c).
Replacements: Davies, Cornborough, S Brown, O'Donnell, Packer, Riley, Burford, E Scott.
Scotland: Rollie, Lloyd, Smith, Thomson, Sergeant; Nelson, Maxwell; Kennedy, Skeldon, Forsyth, Wassell, Howat, Bonar, McLachlan, Konkel.
Replacements: Rettie, Cockburn, Dougan, Muzambe, McCormack, Grieve, Martin, Evans.
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Is this really news?
Well done England. Didn't stop, unlike the men.
Am sure that other NH Ladies CountriesCoun in talks to become Professional as well. England have set that benchmark and others to follow.
Plus Sport needs promoting for all areas of participants.
Well done again the Red Roses of England and hope other countries are pushing to support their ladies too.
Let the woman game game pay for themselves if you business model was good. Or did your business model fail for some reason?
Well done England ladies.
Sadly 80 - 0 confirms the huge disparity in the women's game. England are a professional team with all the facilities for physiological and psychological care. Scotland have very basic facilities as an amateur team. most of the 13,000 supporters were made up from the mens game!!
For those of you calling the competition pointless - you must be playing a high standard to make this statement? More likely, you can’t even run the length of yourselves. Get a grip.
You say you cannot take womens rugby as it is not a level playing field.
Whats the difference between that and the EPL where one team can spend 300 million and take all the top player and team another has to compete against them with little or no money. That's the very definition of an uneven playing field.
Great win by the Red Roses to top off a Grand Slam and the Six Nations trophy, which they can be proud of. 🌹
There's not much difference in physical capabilities between normal men and women, but there's a *massive* difference in speed and strength between the most capable men and the best women. Women's rugby and football are skilful, but they look slow and ponderous compared with the men ... because they are.