{"id":57432,"date":"2025-08-10T10:25:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T10:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/57432\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T10:25:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T10:25:07","slug":"england-complete-prep-for-womens-rugby-world-cup-with-win-over-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/57432\/","title":{"rendered":"England complete prep for Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup with win over France"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>England ran in six tries as they completed their preparations for the Women\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/rugby-world-cup\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rugby World Cup<\/a> with a 40-6 win over France.<\/p>\n<p>The Red Roses, who kick off their campaign against the United States at Sunderland\u2019s Stadium of Light on Friday, August 22, were made to work hard for a 27th successive victory in Mont-de-Marsan by a French side missing first-choice scrum-half <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/pauline-bourdon\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pauline Bourdon<\/a> Sansus through suspension.<\/p>\n<p>England\u2019s forward power proved irresistible during the first half as they established a commanding lead, but having seen France all but reel them in before holding on to win their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/six-nations\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Six Nations<\/a> Grand Slam decider in April 43-42, they headed for the dressing room taking nothing for granted.<\/p>\n<p>Morwenna Talling provided the finishing touch to a fourth-minute rolling maul after second row partner <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/abbie-ward\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Abbie Ward<\/a> had secured possession at an early line-out, and hooker Amy Cockayne repeated the dose at the end of a powerful 15th-minute drive with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/zoe-harrison\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Zoe Harrison<\/a> adding the conversion.<\/p>\n<p>Handling errors and imprecision cost John Mitchell\u2019s side further tries as the French conceded a series of penalties which eventually saw lock forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/manae-feleu\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Manae Feleu<\/a> yellow-carded, and although <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/morgane-bourgeois\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Morgane Bourgeois<\/a> reduced the deficit with a penalty in her absence, prop <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/maud-muir\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Maud Muir<\/a> touched down from another rolling maul and Harrison added the extras to make it 19-3 at the break.<\/p>\n<p>Bourgeois kicked a second penalty to capitalise on Teani Feleu\u2019s rampaging early break as the second half got under way, but scrum-half Natasha Hunt\u2019s quick thinking after her pack had forced a scrum penalty sent centre <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/megan-jones\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Megan Jones<\/a> over and Harrison obliged once again.<\/p>\n<p>France started to throw the ball around, with half-backs <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/carla-arbez\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Carla Arbez<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/alexandra-chambon\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Alexandra Chambon<\/a> both making dangerous breaks and as the England scrum came under pressure, the visitors were starved of meaningful possession.<\/p>\n<p>But catch and drive did the trick once again with six minutes remaining for replacement hooker <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/lark-davies\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lark Atkin-Davies<\/a> to go over, and she added a second three minutes later to allow Harrison to take her tally to 10 points with two more successful kicks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England ran in six tries as they completed their preparations for the Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup with a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-57432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}