Harriet Millar-Mills scored twice as England beat Scotland 32-0 in the opening round of the Women’s Six Nations Championship in Cumbernauld, Glasgow.
The 24-year-old back-row forward scored two of England’s five tries either side of half time as they dominated the home team on a rainy evening in Scotland.
La Toya Mason (Photo:Jan Kruger – RFU/The RFU Collection via Getty Images)
Substitute Lucy Demaine also got on the score sheet to mark her dream England debut and La Toya Mason orchestrated the tempo of the match from scrum half on her 50th appearance.
Bristol blindside flanker Millar-Mills earned herself player of the match with a stunning performance in the set piece and breakdown.
“It’s amazing,” said Millar-Mills. “I don’t know what to say; it’s the end of the game and I’m knackered but I’ve never got player of the match before. Chuffed.”
La Toya Mason showed her experience and composure to set up Millar-Mills for her first try from the back of a scrum.
“It was awesome play off the scrum, Sarah Hunter ran off it and La Toya did an awesome pass to put me in the space. For the second one, I think the full back over chased and Lotte (Clapp) shouted at me to go and I went and did what I was told.”
England battled hard in the first half to frustrate Scotland with a high intensity in defence which forced mistakes to creep into the Scottish play.
Scotland came close to scoring on a number of occasions in the first half, but England’s organisation and maturity in their style of play kept them in control, capitalising on Scotland’s errors to earn a 15-0 lead by half time.
England Lead Coach Scott Bemand said: “Scotland turned up to try and played well. Our biggest plus was our energy in defence, managing to shut out a pretty spirited Scotland team. A good contest but we got what we came here for.”
Scotland Team: 1 Tracy Balmer 2 Lana Skeldon 3 Lindsey Smith 4 Emma Wassell 5 Deborah McCormack 6 Jemma Forsyth 7 Karen Dunbar 8 Jade Konkel 9 Sarah Law 10 Lisa Martin 11 Rhona Lloyd 12 Lisa Thomson 13 Hannah Smith 14 Megan Gaffney 15 Chloe Rollie
Replacements: 16 Sarah Quick 17 Debbie Falconer 18 Heather Lockhart 19 Fiona Sim 20 Anna Stodter 21 Jennifer Maxwell 22 Lauren Harris 23 Eilidh Sinclair
England Team: 1 Rochelle Clark 2 Amy Cokayne 3 Vickii Cornborough 4 Abbie Scott 5 Emily Braund 6 Harriet Millar-Mills 7 Izzy Noel-Smith 8 Sarah Hunter 9 La Toya Mason 10 Amber Reed 11 Lotte Clapp 12 Ceri Large 13 Lauren Cattell 14 Ruth Laybourn 15 Katie Mason
Replacements: 16 Heather Kerr 17 Emma Croker 18 Bee Dawson 19 Courtney Gill 20 Poppy Cleall 21 Bianca Blackburn 22 Lucy Demaine 23 Leanne Riley
Pictured above England Captain Sarah Taylor
Report courtesy of England Rugby
