Red Roses only satisfied as wins over France and New Zealand provide valuable lessons
England backed up last year's WXV1 win over the Black Ferns with victory on Saturday
©Photo by Dave Rowland/Getty Images
John Mitchell’s Red Roses emerged victorious over the Black Ferns on Saturday with a 24-12 win in front of 41,000 fans at the Allianz Stadium.
With last week’s 38-19 victory over France behind them, England have now done the double against the 4th and 2nd-ranked sides in the world, which should provide ample confidence heading into the upcoming WXV1 competition.
There, they will once again face New Zealand as well as Canada and the USA but whilst Saturday’s scoreboard indicates a comfortable win, the game was a mixed bag for Mitchell’s side.
It was a frantic opening with New Zealand looking threatening with multiple attacking opportunities however they were denied by some strong scramble defence by England.
Eventually, it was the Red Roses who opened the scoring with captain Marlie Packer crashing over at the tail of a driving maul.
On the opening try, England forward Zoe Aldcroft explained: “As a forward pack, we like to assert our dominance. If we get that right, then it allows our backs to play, so it was really important that we took the legs out from underneath our opposite pack, and I think we put a good effort in.”
With the first try scored, England let loose in attack, with Abby Dow finishing off the second after an electric break down the wing and Ellie Kildune got the third with a nice strike move off a lineout.
Despite Aldcroft being shown yellow just before half-time, England entered the break in full control of the game and had a 17-0 lead.
Far from firing on all cylinders but to have had that sort of advantage against the world champions was surely a statement?
From the restart, a New Zealand knock-on provided England with a platform for yet another try, with Natasha Hunt sniping over.
Despite the game seeming out of reach, the world champions showed their hand, finally getting a score on the board as winger Katelyn Vahaakolo went over for a brace of tries in quick succession.
The momentum of the game was starting to swing in favour of the visitors as they began to play as a much more cohesive unit, however despite their best efforts, they failed to score any more, and the Red Roses took the victory for the second time since the 2021 World Cup final.
Speaking after the game, New Zealand co-captain Kennedy Tukuafu said: “I’m really proud of a lot of things that we did out there. We could have tidied up a few bits, like just holding onto the ball a bit longer to show what we’ve got, but credit to England, and we’re fortunate to have another opportunity come WXV.”
Black Ferns head coach Alan Bunting added: “This experience has been massively valuable for us, the time away and the opportunity to play here with the amazing atmosphere and to play against England, you always want to test yourselves against the best.
“Obviously, a little bit disappointed about today but massively proud of the growth of our game that we’ve worked on quite a bit.”
As for the Red Roses, they’ll be happy with the result however, there were definitely opportunities missed for the complete performance.
Head coach John Mitchell explained: "It was a satisfying performance. We went through a patchy start but then built some really good pressure, especially in our unstructured play and then had the opportunity to finish them but didn’t do that, letting them off through penalties where we could have buried them.
"The last World Cup that we went to, we didn’t get these lessons at this time of year, so I think today was really good for us.”
Mitchell went on to explain how he felt his side could have improved: “I think our discipline in the last 20 metres of the field let them off the hook. We also need to learn that we didn’t get momentum like we normally do. New Zealand did a good job there, so for us, there are some key learnings on how we do that going forward.
“I’m a hard marker, but they’ve just come off the back of two pre-season games. Seven of the players today haven’t played for 10 weeks, and they’ve just played against the world champions, so I’m pretty happy with where we’re at.”
