Meg Jones insists Red Roses are ‘not broken’ after second straight Canada defeat

Red Roses captain Meg Jones insisted that the world champions were not “broken” in the wake of their second consecutive loss to Canada.

England’s 31-22 defeat to Canada at Ottawa’s TD Place Stadium marked the first time since 2016 that the Red Roses have lost consecutive Tests.

Jones played the full 80 minutes in the Canadian capital as Sophie de Goede, Julia Omokhuale, DaLeaka Menin and Savannah Bauder all crashed over the whitewash.

Across their three meetings this year in WXV Global Series, Canada are unbeaten. In September, the Red Roses were held to a 26-all draw in Exeter before last week’s 24-21 defeat in Toronto.

“We just needed to respond a bit better,” Jones said at full-time. “Credit to Canada – what an excellent, excellent team they are. They stick to their process and it pulled through today.

“We’ve just got to grow. We’re not broken. We just need to grow from it. I think that’s our performance mindset. We’ve got to stick with it.”

England have one last chance to get back to winning ways in New Jersey against the USA Women’s Eagles.

The USA, coached by Jack Hanratty, are unbeaten in their last four Tests and face Italy in Nashville on Saturday. England will need a significant improvement to overcome an Eagles side arriving in strong form.

The Red Roses have consistently claimed that they do not want to win games by large margins. Now, all of a sudden, they are being forced to answer questions on the fly as the rest of the world has seemingly made ground on the world’s top-ranked side.

“What an amazing crowd there is today,” Jones said. “Last week was the exact same. I think our biggest thing is playing the best teams, and that’s what we’re going to do.

“We’ve got to play the best to know where we’re at, get tested as much as we can, and then, in three years’ time, when we’ve got the World Cup again, we can keep going towards that.”