Job done for Street and England

Editor

England women's coach Gary Street insists it is job done after seeing his side reach the World Cup semi-finals in France

England women's coach Gary Street insists it is job done after seeing his side reach the World Cup semi-finals.

A 13-13 draw with Canada was enough to see England top Pool A, booking their place in the final four in the process.

It was not easy against a powerful Canadian outfit, but Sarah Hunter's try, along with eight points from Emily Scarratt, were enough for England.

And with four-time champions New Zealand knocked as a result of the draw, Street is confident England and can build on the performance.

“It's very much a case of job done – from the start of the tournament our aim was to get into the semi-final and that's where we are,” he said.

“Of course we know that we can improve – we made too many silly errors, some of which were quite uncharacteristic. But in some ways that's the exciting thing, we still haven't reached our potential.

“We knew that a draw would be enough to see us through, we went through the various scenarios beforehand, so at 13-13 we had no problem kicking it out.”

Skipper Hunter scored England's only try in the second half, and admitted it had been a real battle against the Canadians.

“It was physical and competitive, we knew that Canada would front up and they definitely brought their game to us,” she added.

“We know that we've been in a battle and it was a great game to be involved in.

“We're delighted to get out of the Pool – that's what it was always about. We know that we are going to have to improve on today's performance, but we have a few days now and we'll look to recover and switch focus on the next one.”