women
international women
Meg Jones and John Mitchell cut very different figures to those we’ve seen in the previous two weeks.
After back-to-back defeats against Canada, the captain and head coach of the Red Roses experienced extensive backlash USA The Eagles women’s team entered the competition on a five-game winning streak.
Up to full time at New Jersey’s Sports Illustrated Stadium, Women’s Rugby World Cup The 2025 champions defeated their hosts 55-12 to end their WXV Global Series high-level campaign.
Recalled wing Claudia Moloney-MacDonald scored four tries as England denied the Eagles sustained possession and prevented their fighting back row from establishing a rhythm.
For an England side bruised by back-to-back defeats to Canada, it was the kind of result that can give them confidence heading into a six-month break from Test rugby.
“We wanted to impose ourselves on the USA,” Jones said at full time. “They were coming off good wins, so we knew they had some momentum. We had to stop it and we did.”
“Once we got into it, we started holding the ball, being patient and having good control. Everyone was a threat for the line. We became unstoppable and I think that’s where the tries came from.”
“After two losses, we just wanted to learn and we will continue to learn. We got so much feedback from this tour.”
“We’re going to review it like we always do, think and see where we can continue to grow because I know there’s so much growth in this team.
“We’re hungry to be better and to do better. We’re just unbreakable at this point, but we have to keep trying and keep growing.”
It was England’s attack that really shone at the Sports Illustrated Stadium, although the defensive efforts of Morwenna Talling, Sadia Kabeye and Lilli Ives Campion were equally impressive.
By full time the world champions had made 21 line breaks to the USA’s zero. Moloney-MacDonald’s quartet rightly grabbed the headlines, but it was the all-round package that the team’s head coach was most pleased with.
“We played tonight,” Mitchell said. “We attacked, we controlled them, they didn’t control us. Some of the PAC4 (Pacific Four Series) teams like to have possession from deep.
“Sometimes we feed teams when we don’t need to. We supported both sides of the offense and took control from there.”
“We also encouraged ambition. There weren’t too many times we were reckless tonight. We were probably more patient as the game went on, which was nice.”
