women
international women
England losing a match will benefit them in the long run because the mistakes they can learn from increase when the team is on the losing side, says back Abi Burton.
The Red Roses lost their first game since 2022 last Friday Canada won 24-21. It was also the first time that Burton lost in England. The 26-year-old made her debut for the Red Roses during the 2025 Guinness Women’s Competition. Six Nations and since then she has played 13 games for her national team.
Burton said the loss was “bad” but it was not a new feeling for her as she had previously lost to the GB Sevens. She added that “adversities create a positive place for growth.”
“I’m glad we got to experience it because sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know,” she said. “I thought Canada was great. I think that’s the test of rugby you want to be in that can go either way. We all want to play in those games. We don’t want to play in those games where we’re beating teams by a bunch of points. I’d rather play in a game like that and lose and learn a lot more than that.
“100% (the loss will benefit the team). I think from a learning point of view, how we can better deal with situations when it comes to the last five minutes of the game, that’s a huge part of the learning for us. Also how we can manage from a forward perspective, from a scrum and lineout point of view how we manage through that and then our conversion when we got into the 22.
“We’d always know that was a fact, but it’s never magnified as much when you win. From that point of view, I think it was brilliant that we were able to come through that and come out the other side and be in a good place going into the game (on Friday).”
England will play Canada again in the third and final Test during this one WXV Global Series on Friday. The response within the England group has been good and the team has come together, says Burton. She also agreed with head coach John Mitchell that the loss now frees the group to fight back.
“There is no more fear of loss or failure,” she said. “It (the unbeaten record) isn’t necessarily something we’ve talked about as a group, but it’s always on social media, it’s always in the headlines. We don’t have anything to lose anymore, whereas before we had a 41-game losing streak.
“It’s like that viral song with the saxophones getting louder, the saxophones getting louder and we were all like ‘yeah, we’re just going to keep going.’ That’s the thing, you go to win every game, but now we’re not going out trying not to lose anymore.
“It was always supposed to loom over us, but now we have nothing to lose, there are opportunities for people to play, it’s an earthquake. I think it gives us freedom, we all want the freedom to play.”
Off the field, the playing group was involved in some socializing while away from home. On Wednesday night they went to watch ice hockey which reminded Barton of “old school rugby league” with “the crowd abusing” and the players “fighting”.
She added that the time teammates spend together when playing away is invaluable for bonding with each other.
“We definitely bond more when we’re away,” she said. “It’s one of those things, you’re stuck with each other, you can’t get away from each other. It’s also about how do we take our experiences when we’re away and how do we bring them back when we’re in the middle of the Six Nations campaign? How can we create those bonding experiences naturally when we’re at home? We talked about that the other day.”
Burton will forever go down in history as she was in the group for their world record 41-match unbeaten run, including the women’s Rugby World Cup victory last year. But she says the team can continue to add to its legacy despite the now record-ending loss.
“I feel super special that I was part of that group,” she added. “Hopefully we can continue to leave a legacy. It might not be a huge unbeaten run, but it might be the fact that we can continue to help shape what rugby looks like in England for the young girls and boys coming through the game.”
“It looks like we’re continuing to sell out the Allianz Stadium. That’s the way it looks. I think that’s what we can do is keep shaping it and the wins and everything will come.
“It will come again in time and it could come again on Friday. We have to do our best to do that.”
