England maintained their position at the top of the TikTok Women’s Six Nations table after thrashing Ireland 69-0 at Welford Road in front of a record-breaking crowd of 15,836. Meanwhile, France kept their Championship hopes alive with a win in Wales, and Italy beat Scotland for their first win of the campaign.
Lark Davies opened the scoring with barely two minutes shown on the clock, before the visitors were twice reduced to 14 women after the break when Dorothy Wall was sent to the sin bin and Sene Naoupu received a red card for a head-on tackle.
Local girl Emily Scarratt was given the honour of leading the Red Roses out on her 100th cap. Scarratt was in good form converting five tries as England added nine tries in the second half to run out comfortable winners. Davies, Lydia Thompson and Poppy Cleall bagged a brace of tries as Simon Middleton’s side ran riot in the second half to make it four wins out of four.
England’s nearest challengers are France who also made it four from four after a 33-5 victory at Cardiff Arms Park on Friday. France sealed the win thanks to a first-half which yielded 26 points without reply.
The victory for the French sets ups a mouth-watering winner takes all clash with England in Bayonne on Saturday afternoon.
England sit at the top of the pile by virtue of a far superior points difference which stands at plus 248 with France’s difference only 116.
The only other game played at the weekend featured Italy who defeated Scotland 20-13 to pick up their first win in the championship.
Italy fell 10-3 down at the break but a fine second-half comeback secured the win.
Alongside the winner takes all battle in France on Saturday, the final round of matches in the Six Nations will see Wales up against Italy with a 12 pm kick-off, whilst Ireland are at home to Scotland in the final game of the tournament at 8 pm.
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