Rampant England beat Scotland to reach World Cup semis and break wins record

BRISTOL, England : England battered neighbours Scotland to keep their Women's World Cup juggernaut rolling on, running in six tries in a lopsided 40-8 victory on Sunday to reach the semi-finals and set a new world record for consecutive test wins.

Kelsey Clifford went over twice while further tries for Morwenna Talling, Abby Dow, Amy Cokayne and Holly Aitchison at Bristol's Ashton Gate stadium wrapped up a 31st straight win for England and teed up a semi-final with old rivals France.

The tournament hosts, who are unbeaten since their last world record run of 30 wins was ended by New Zealand in the 2022 final, laid down another emphatic marker to their rivals, crossing four times in the first half and then cruising through the remainder of the contest.

Five Aitchison conversions took her points tally for the afternoon to 15 while Scotland's only dents on the scoreboard came from Helen Nelson's early penalty and a desperately late try from Rhona Lloyd as their hopes of reaching their first semi-final were crushed.

England's dominance in this fixture was so emphatic that a Scotland victory was only possible in the wilder fringes of the imagination.

England were on a 27-match winning streak against their neighbours spanning 26 years with the average score in their last 10 meetings showing a near 50-point gap.

While some sporting scripts have to be torn up and rewritten, this one seemed as near to being carved in stone as you could get.

Yet for the briefest of moments it looked as though England could be in for at least a testing afternoon in a familiarly rain-sodden Bristol.

A spell of early Scotland pressure pegged England back on their line and while they could not force it over, Nelson's close-range penalty gave them a 3-0