England on verge of making World Cup finals after rout of Northern Ireland

Two goals each from rampant winger Lauren Hemp and her Manchester City teammate Georgia Stanway guided England to an emphatic win over Northern Ireland in Belfast to all but guarantee England’s qualification for the Women’s World Cup.

England ensured at least a playoff place for next summer’s tournament but will likely top the group with Austria needing to overturn the superior goal difference of 32 should the Lionesses take a single point from their final two games of the qualifying campaign.

Manchester United forward Ella Toone provided two assists and scored England’s second as the Lionesses maintained their perfect qualifying campaign against a team they will meet in their final group game of the Euros in the summer.

Northern Ireland were always going to offer a sterner test than North Macedonia had the previous week, not just in terms of the 10-0 score-line. The Lionesses swapped the close-to empty Tose Proeski Arena for a trip to the sold-out Windsor Park, the dry heat of Skopje for a bitterly cold Belfast, a record Northern Ireland crowd in full voice and were facing a team that had not conceded in the first half in six games prior.

But it would have been naive to think that Sarina Wiegman’s side, serious contenders for the home Euros ahead, would not overturn a team of players that entered a first ever seven-month full-time spell in January in preparation for a first appearance at a major international tournament this summer.

For Kenny Shiel’s team, a crushing 3-1 defeat to Austria, their main rivals for a 2023 World Cup play-off place, last week piled the pressure on for the visit of England – take points off the qualifying Group D leaders, who had won seven in seven prior, scoring 63 times without conceding,