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The big question: Are England's Red Roses the greatest sports team of all time?
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Are England’s Red Roses the greatest sports team of all time?
Right now, three days after the world champions won an eighth consecutive Guinness Women’s Six Nations crown, that is the question that percolates around John Mitchell’s side.
Honestly, it is hard to say. They have already broken their own record of seven successive Women’s Six Nations titles in a row between 2006 and 2012, while no Guinness Men’s Six Nations side has won the Championship more than two times in a row since the turn of the century.
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The Boston Celtics eight NBA Championships between 1959 and 1966 stand alone as the Red Roses’ only rivals to such sustained supremacy. But that was several generations ago now.
When asked whether his England – who have now won a world record 38 Tests in a row – were one of the best sports teams ever after their 43-28 win against France in Bordeaux, a clearly emotional Mitchell calmly replied, “I think we must be pretty close.”
BBC Sport pundit, and Women’s Rugby World Cup winner, Ruby Tui was more definitive in her assessment when she stated that the Red Roses are “doing things we’ve never seen before” and are the “greatest we’ve ever seen”. That is pretty high praise from a player that helped the Black Ferns win their sixth world title just four years ago.
Success in Round 5 of this year’s Championship means that this crop of Red Roses are the first team, men’s or women’s, to claim a Six Nations title immediately after World Cup success. They really are re-writing the record books. And the motivation to keep on adding new chapters is at an all-time high.
“We weren’t perfect throughout this Six Nations, there are lots we can grow from and learn from but we still won it,” Kildunne said on Sunday. “When you are at the top you are always wanting more, wanting to be better and I think that is what makes us so brilliant.
“We will never be comfortable with winning, however many grand slams or winning World Cups. We always want more. We always want better. We will keep pushing this team to heights that it has never been before.”
It will be a little while until we see England in action again. They will be in WXV Global Series action when they host Australia this September in Manchester, before further Tests against Canada and the Black Ferns to finish their on home soil. A pair of fixtures against Canada, in Canada, will duly follow.
Who knows how long their world record winning streak will be by then?
What, undoubtedly, sets this England team apart from all else is desire. For many a Women’s Rugby World Cup win could be the perfect place to put a pin in everything, step back and relax for a bit. Not for this Red Roses team.
Yes, four players have taken a break with pregnancy and several more are injured, but the core that remained drove the standards. Meg Jones took on the captaincy from Zoe Stratford and played every minute. She was the only England player to be on the pitch for 400 minutes. She only missed 28 minutes of the Women’s Rugby World Cup run.
Even Marlie Packer’s two starts told us everything we needed to know about England. On those two starts she scored six tries, and another against Scotland in a 23 minute cameo at Scottish Gas Murrayfield. The 36-year-old did everything that her team needed, just when they needed it. The Red Roses were much the better for it.
Of course, everyone is trying to catch up to England. World rankings toppers, world champions and untouchable on the northern hemisphere for much of the past decade, all of France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales want to emulate their bitter Anglo rivals.
On that journey you do have to think France and Ireland are the closest. Not just because of where they finished in the Six Nations table, but for France’s impressive depth cultivated in the AXA Elite 1 Feminin, while Ireland have their own boundless talent coming through the ranks.
Still, for now at least, it is the Red Roses’ world. And you have to think they will be reticent about giving it up.
“It was fantastic to win a World Cup at home, and you never forget that,” Mitchell said. “But we’re in a new cycle. No English team, men’s or women’s, has ever gone back-to-back after a World Cup. Not that we’re driven by outcome, but we wanted to be very intentional around winning on winning.”
