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England sink Wallaroos in rainy World Cup quarter-final

Sarah Hunter secures the line out for England. Photo by MICHAEL BRADLEY/AFP via Getty Images

Jay Tregonning’s Wallaroos side are heading home from New Zealand after a 41-5 World Cup quarter-final humbling by England.

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Tournament favourites England have washed away Australia’s World Cup hopes with a 41-5 win in their quarter-final in Auckland.

In driving rain at Waitakere Stadium, England’s class and strength prevailed over an ill-disciplined and fumbly Australia.

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Milestone woman Sarah Hunter ensured the Red Roses led from the eighth minute, before Marlie Packer scored two first-half tries to give England a scoreboard buffer.

Jay Tregonning’s side never seriously challenged, struggling at line-outs and to maintain possession in the big wet.

One statistic told the story – Australia spent just 25 seconds in the English 22.

A stunning Emily Chancellor try in the shadow of halftime gave the Wallaroos a glimmer of hope, but the English put on four unanswered second-half tries to surge into the semi-finals.

Captain Shannon Parry said she was proud of her side but the Red Roses deserved their win.

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“England are a world class team. They’re a well oiled machine,” she said.

The odds were against Australia from the outset.

England had never failed to reach a World Cup semi and came into the knockout rounds on a three-year winning streak.

The Wallaroos’ forward pack needed to stand up to the mighty England scrum to have a shot, but they failed their first test to allow Hunter an opening try. It was a fitting reward for the living legend who became rugby’s most capped woman on Saturday, playing her 138th Test.

A yellow card to reigning world player of the year Zoe Aldcroft for a head clash gave the Wallaroos a look in, however Lori Cramer missed a penalty in their only chance for points with an advantage.

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Soon after parity was restored, Parry was sent to the bin for an offside after a string of warnings from the referee.

After missing a pair of tries in marginal TMO rulings, England’s Packer went in twice while a woman up.

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Australia were woeful at the lineout, losing six of their first eight, before Chancellor shocked England to finish a sweeping move with a stampeding run.

Any momentum Australia might have had going into the break was swept away by Abbie Ward’s 44th-minute try.

Emily Scarratt missed the conversion, going at two from six on a horror day for kicking.

Hooker Amy Cokayne then went over in the 53rd minute to wild celebrations, and Alex Matthews followed in the 62nd.

Putting an exclamation point on their performance, Packer sealed her hat-trick in the last minute after a trademark lineout push.

The result means Australia head home with a 2-2 record in New Zealand, losing to England and the hosts, but beating Scotland and Wales.

With their world record-lengthening 29th straight Test win, England join New Zealand and France in the last four.

On Saturday, New Zealand crushed Wales 55-3 and France defeated Italy 39-3, and the pair will play next Saturday at Eden Park for a place in the World Cup final.

England will meet the winner of the last quarter-final, between Canada and the United States, played later on Sunday.

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

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N
Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
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