John Mitchell sends ominous warning to World Cup rivals after big Red Roses win: ‘We’ve only just got started’

England head coach John Mitchell has warned the Red Roses’ Women’s Rugby World Cup rivals that his side have “only just got started” after they opened the tournament with a thrashing of the United States.

The Red Roses scored 11 tries in Sunderland to begin their quest for a long-awaited world title in style, overcoming a sticky start to pull away and showcase the talent at Mitchell’s disposal.

England are now unbeaten in their last 28 games and the last World Cup final is the only game they have lost since 2019 in an era of real dominance.

The hosts were superior in just about every facet in front of a record crowd at the Stadium of Light, though were in a real battle for 25 minutes as the USA brought the physicality.

Mitchell believes that Samoa and Australia, England’s remaining pool stage opponents, will both provide similar challenges but was pleased with how his side came through to pull away.

“We’ve just got to deal with what we’re confronted with,” the head coach said. “We’re hunted and we love being hunted. Every team is going to rise physically and mentally 10 or 15 per cent, we expect that, but we’re also going to grow as well. We’ve only just got started and there’s a lot of great depth in us.

“I think we built into the performance slowly and we lifted our intensity in the second half. We really enjoyed the way the girls built pressure on USA. We forced their negativity I guess and we took advantage of that.

“The scrum was outstanding tonight. The scrum buried USA. Numerous penalties probably could have sent some players to the bin as well because of continued negativity in that area. We’ll just go where we can apply pressure. You can’t just always rely on individuals and as this tournament progresses we’re going to have to get even better in our connections and working together.”

Two tries for Ellie Kildunne saw one of the faces of the tournament in a prominent role on its opening night, while outside centre Meg Jones was excellent in both attack and defence.

Mitchell also sought to make mention of prop Hannah Botterman and flanker Sadia Kabeya, who were at the heart of a powerful performance up front – even if a few sloppy restarts give England an area to work on.

“She’s a special player,” the coach said of Botterman. “We’ve got lots of special players. It’s very hard to single a person out but she should be well recognised for her performance.

“There were a number of really good performances out there tonight. Where my eyes were looking, I thought Sadia Kabeya was outstanding.

“There’s always something to work on. This game’s never finite. I don’t think you ever become satisfied with a performance. You’re able to morph that into the next preparation and the girls are very good at finding solutions. It’s good that we’ve got something to work on.”