Red Roses ease to victory over Canada

By Mark Stevens
14/11/21

England Women maintained their winning streak this Autumn as they overpowered Canada 51-12 at the Twickenham Stoop.

Debutant wing Heather Cowell scored two tries for the hosts, while prop Sarah Bern powered over for her own double.

Canada - who include the Exeter Chiefs trio of Olivia De Merchant, Emily Tuttosi and DaLeaka Menin in their starting line-up - fought hard throughout, their efforts rewarded with Sabrina Poulin and Paige Ferries claiming long-range tries.

However, Claudia McDonald scored twice, while Alex Matthews also went over as the hosts' fitness and squad depth told in the latter stages of the match.

Defeat of Canada, ranked third in the world, follows back-to-back record wins over world champions New Zealand over the previous two weekends and extends England's winning streak to 17 successive Tests.

England coach Simon Middleton will warn his side against any complacency however, given France's 38-13 win over the Black Ferns on Saturday.

With less than a year to go before the delayed Rugby World Cup in New Zealand, the two European superpowers seem furthest ahead in their preparations.

England will attempt to complete a clean sweep of their autumn Tests against the United States in Worcester next Sunday. Victory would mean they match England's men's record of 18 successive Test wins between 2015 and 2017.

Post-game, England captain Sarah Hunter said: “We knew we were going to get a test from Canada, we always do, they are a physical side and we got that again. You look at the score and that doesn’t reflect how the game felt, there was patches in that and moments where they caused us problems and came at us, it was just great how the team got back on track and regained momentum.

"Simon has always talked about having two, three or four players in each position, if we want to go win a World Cup we’re going to need that, I think the great thing we’re doing is building a real squad depth. You cannot rely on just 15 players."