England beat France 40-4 in the Rugby test in an incredible performance at both the offense and defense. Playing away from home, England showed superb defensive effort and kept charging upon a tight eleven-players defense by the French women.
In the first half, Amy Hardcastle, Paige Travis, and Emily Rudge gave England a 16-0 lead. Meanwhile, Rudge scored one again in the second half, along with Jodie Cuddingham, Tara Jones, and Caitlin Beevers. On the other hand, Melanie Bianchini scored the only try for France.
I don't know about comfortable, it didn't look it sat up there, but I will never knock my team in terms of energy, grit and a performance we should be proud of, especially in defense. A few things in attack we can work on, but I will never fault that team. We talked about they would front-load their energy, they did that in parts, but we never lost belief and kept turning up for each other, we changed one or two things in the middle, but France are a good, tough side in an intimidating atmosphere.
Craig Richards, Head Coach, England