Watch every second of the Wallaroos WXV Global Series live and on demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\nThe Wallaroos stunned the crowd early for a 10-5 lead at the break, the first time England had trailed at half-time since November 2020 against France. This was 60 Tests ago for a Red Roses side who haven’t lost in 1,400 days.<\/p>\n
But the quality of the world number one shone in the second half, piling in 36 unanswered points for the victory.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think that scoreline is a reflection of what the game was,” captain Siokapesi Palu Sekona said post-game.<\/p>\n
“We didn’t finish the way that we wanted to, but we’ll take a lot of positives…We’re going to take a lot of confidence against a world-class team like that. We can actually give in, so for us it’s just trying to string along the full 80-minute game so that we can actually compete.”<\/p>\n
The Wallaroos proved their toughness and fight in a dogged first-half display that delivered a deserved five point advantage at half-time.<\/p>\n
Samantha Wood\u2019s boot opened the scoring in the third minute as the visitors were smart with their control of field position.<\/p>\n
England had most of the chances in the first half but met a wall of gold. Meg Jones thought she had the opener in the sixth minute after a charge down, brought back after the English skipper was offside after the deflection from Desiree Miller\u2019s kick.<\/p>\n
Eventually, smart hands delivered points via back-rower Abi Burton after Wood was binned for a deliberate knock-down.<\/p>\n
But the Aussies didn\u2019t dip their heads and instead launched a counter via Faliki Pohiva. The prop rumbled over the line for the lead after Michaela Leonard\u2019s stolen lineout on England\u2019s five-metre line.<\/p>\n
After strong goal-line defence, Australia had a 10-5 lead at the break, with the Red Roses trailing at half-time for the first time in seven years.<\/p>\n
It took the 47th minute for England to take a lead that wouldn\u2019t let go, hooker May Campbell delivering at the back of the rolling maul.<\/p>\n
This opened the floodgates for the English as Jones gave them a lead that wouldn’t let go.<\/p>\n
Five tries in a 15-minute period quashed any hopes of a dream Australian upset, as the replacement front row of England was unstoppable, most notably returning prop Hannah Botterman.<\/p>\n
Eva Karpani’s yellow card for a deliberate knock down only made matters worse as veterans Sadia Kabeya and Lucy Packer added to the lead.<\/p>\n
Karpani made up for her indiscretion with a late five-pointer, but it was England’s second half to savour as Claudia Moloney-MacDonald iced the win.<\/p>\n
The Wallaroos turn their attention to France next weekend, with changes likely after the brutal contest.<\/p>\n
Flanker Lily Bone failed a HIA midway through the first half, with Pohiva among several dealing with knocks throughout the game.<\/p>\n
“We responded so much better in that game than we did against our game against the Black Ferns, so we know we’re going to be confident leading into [the] France game,” Palu Sekona added.<\/p>\n
“They’re just elite; they’re a Tier 1 nation for a reason. We know what to fix, but we’re just going to string it along.<\/p>\n
“We could see the glimpses in that first half. We really took it to them, and so for us it’s just belief and just making sure that we can compete.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England have brushed off a gutsy display from the Wallaroos for a 48-15 win in Manchester. The 33-point…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":889614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,1208,760,85,19259],"class_list":["post-889613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-england","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-wallaroos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889613","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=889613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/889614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=889613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=889613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=889613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}