England coach unhappy with 'cynical' Scotland after reaching World Cup semis
Rugby - Women's World Cup 2025 - Quarter-Finals - England v Scotland - Ashton Gate, Bristol, Britain - September 14, 2025 England head coach John Mitchell arrives before the match Action Images via Reuters/Peter Cziborra
BRISTOL, England :England romped into the Women's World Cup semi-finals, but coach John Mitchell felt their 40-8 victory over Scotland should have been more emphatic, accusing Sunday's opponents of cynically disrupting the game.
England ran in four tries in the first half and two more after the break to set up a semi-final with old rivals France, but the second half at a rainy Bristol was far more fragmented with the scrum being frequently reset.
Mitchell felt penalty tries should have been awarded for what he called Scotland's repeated infringements and he would be taking it up with governing body World Rugby.
"I think we dominated territory. And we built pressure on them. We found weakness in cynical actions at their set piece, and we went for the jugular there," he told reporters.
"Probably sort of need to talk to World Rugby about understanding when teams are so cynical and why we don't get awarded penalty tries sometimes... But I thought it was a terrific performance in the conditions."
England were certainly dominant at the set piece, losing only one of their 13 own lineouts while Scotland lost eight and it was a similar story in the scrum, with England winning five of 10 Scottish scrums.
Yet Mitchell felt his side were not being rewarded for that dominance.
"There's just repeated infringement at scrum time," he said. "And the whole second half just slowed down at scrum time, didn't it? So the game deserves better than that, I think.
"Look how dominant we were at scrum time. I don't have to quantify it; you saw it. So maul and scrum was superior. So we should be rewarded for that."
France are likely to pose a sterner test for England despite having not beaten them since 2018.
England narrowly won their last Six Nations encounter in April 43–42 before winning by a more comprehensive 40-6 in France in August.
"We took huge belief from that performance (in August). France will know what we're about, and we just need to make sure that we trust our preparation again, because it all comes down to preparation," Mitchell said.
"We've got our preparation right this week, and hence we got the delivery."
