England reach Women's World Cup quarters with record rout of Samoa
LONDON :England, Canada and Scotland booked their places in the Women's Rugby World Cup quarter-finals with victories on Saturday, but the United States and Australia's fate is still in the balance after they played to a thrilling 31-31 draw in York.
Prop Eva Karpani scored a try five minutes from the end to rescue a draw for Australia in a seesaw contest that provided the best entertainment of the tournament so far.
England head Pool A with 10 points, followed by Australia with eight and the United States have three. The latter need to beat Samoa in their final pool game next Saturday and hope Australia get nothing from their final fixture with England.
The U.S. would still need to make up a 135-point swing on Australia to overhaul them on the table.
"We knew it was going to be a back and forth match, we talked about it all week long," said U.S. captain Kate Zackery.
"Every time we got hit, we hit back a bit harder. It was some fight we maybe haven't shown in a lot of games, so it is something we will carry into next week."
England recorded their biggest victory at a Women's World Cup as they ran in 14 tries in a 92-3 win against a Samoan side with amateur status.
England had 12 different try-scorers, including a hat-trick for winger Jess Breach.
Flyhalf Helena Rowland added 11 conversions to go with her try for a personal haul of 27 points, the most by an England player at the Women's World Cup.
Harmony Vatau's penalty for Samoa early in the second half was celebrated wildly as they managed their first points of the campaign.
"I did (enjoy it when we got points), initially I wanted us to tap and go but we talked about getting some points which we did and we avoided that zero," Samoa coach Ramsey Tomokino told BBC.
Canada, ranked number two in the world behind England, scored six tries in a 42-0 Pool B win over Wales as wings Alysha Corrigan and Asia Hogan-Rochester both scored superb tries.
Props McKinley Hunt (two) and Brittany Kassil, and flyhalf Taylor Perry also crossed the line, and lock Sophie de Goede kicked all six conversions.
"While sticking with our process and just trying to take things game by game, it is great to know that we are through going into our next match (against Scotland on September 6)," Hogan-Rochester said.
Scotland scored five tries in their gritty 29-15 victory over Fiji, whose discipline in the tackle was poor and led to what seemed an inevitable red card for hooker Bitila Tawake.
Wingers Francesca McGhie and Rhona Lloyd scored two tries each and centre Emma Orr got another for Scotland.
