John Mitchell believes England lifted their intensity in the second half of their 69-7 opening Women’s Rugby World Cup win against the United States.
The Red Roses kicked off the tournament in front of a record-breaking crowd of 42,723 at the Stadium of Light, scoring 11 tries.
Sadia Kabeya and Hannah Botterman sent England ahead before USA lock Erica Jarrell-Searcy responded, but after Alev Kelter was sent to the sin bin, Maud Muir and Ellie Kildunne scored in quick succession to see the hosts lead 28-7 at the break.
England shifted up a gear in the second half, running in seven tries as Abby Dow, Kildunne and Amy Cokayne all scored, while Jess Breach and Lark Atkin-Davies celebrated a brace apiece.
Reflecting on the game, Mitchell said: “It was a fantastic atmosphere, to represent your country in the opening match.
“I think we built into the performance slowly and lifted our intensity in the second half.
“Really enjoyed the way the girls built pressure on USA. We forced their negativity, I guess and then we took advantage of that.”
As well as notching their first points of the World Cup, victory also extended England’s winning run to 28 games in total.
The second half proved to be a particularly-ruthless display from the Red Roses against a team ranked 10th in the world, but Mitchell believed there was still “a lot of growth” left for England.
“Firstly, we’re the Red Roses. Even before my time they’ve set outstanding standards,” he said.
“We’re in a fortunate position, we’re also grateful to have great depth. We’re constantly creating pressure.
“The girls are extremely driven and don’t like to be beaten, like anyone, they don’t like to fail.
“Our training standards are very high and it’s up to us as leaders to make sure that we maintain that on a daily basis.
“That’s in our control, we can’t control outside of that. We can’t control where teams are ranked, we’ve just got to deal with what we’re confronted with.
“As I said earlier in the week, we’re hunted and we love being hunted. Every team’s 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 growth left in us.”
Kildunne put in a particularly-impressive shift across the back three and Mitchell also praised England’s scrum, adding that there were still areas to improve.
He said: “It’s good to see Ellie back on the field, doing what she loves doing. She’s very intuitive and her skill set was very good tonight.
“That’s an individual, but then you’ve got to go and look at some of the effort areas by other players and also 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, if it has to be in the scrum.
“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.”
