'We're just unbreakable': Red Roses respond emphatically to Canada defeats

Meg Jones and John Mitchell cut very different figures from those we had seen over the previous fortnight.

After consecutive defeats to Canada, the captain and head coach of the Red Roses saw a comprehensive reaction against a USA Women’s Eagles team that came into the contest on a five-game winning streak.

By full-time at New Jersey’s Sports Illustrated Stadium, the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 champions had beaten their hosts 55-12 and ended their WXV Global Series campaign on a high.

Recalled wing Claudia Moloney-MacDonald scored four tries as England denied the Eagles sustained possession and prevented their combative back row from establishing a rhythm.

For an England team that were bruised by back-to-back losses against Canada, it was the kind of result that can give them confidence going into a six-month hiatus from Test rugby.

“We wanted to impose ourselves on the USA,” Jones said at full-time. “They came off the back of some good wins, so we knew they had momentum. We had to stop that and that’s what we did.

“When we got into it we started keeping the ball, being patient and had good control. Everyone was a threat to the line. We became unstoppable and I think that’s where the tries came from.

“Off the back of two losses, we just wanted to learn and we’ll continue to learn. We’ve got so much feedback from this tour.

“We’re going to review it like we always do, reflect, and see where we can keep growing because I know there’s so much growth in this team.

“We’re hungry to be better and to perform better. We’re just unbreakable at this point, but we need to keep pushing and growing.”

It was England’s attack that truly shone at Sports Illustrated Stadium, although the defensive efforts of Morwenna Talling, Sadia Kabeya and Lilli Ives Campion were equally as 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 satisfied with.

“We played tonight,” Mitchell said. “We attacked, we controlled them rather than them controlling us. Some of the PAC4 [Pacific Four Series] teams like to be possession based from deep.

“Sometimes we feed teams when we don’t need to. We backed both sides of attack and we took control from there.

“We encouraged the ambition as well. There weren’t too many times we were reckless tonight. We probably got more patient as the game wore on which was pleasing.”