Ruthless England rampage past disjointed Ireland

Ireland fell to their heaviest loss to England since 2002 as they conceded 14 tries in a Guinness Women's Six Nations mismatch at Twickenham.

The final margin of 78 points was one better than a 79-0 defeat 22 years ago.

This game was never going to be a benchmark of where Ireland are at as new head coach Scott Bemand builds his side but there were still way too many basic errors and the hosts didn’t have to work hard for any of their tries, six of which came in the first half.

Ellie Kildunne and Amy Dow grabbed hat-tricks as England, five in a row champions, scored at will.

A Dannah O’Brien penalty and a second-half penalty try was all Ireland had to show for their effort.

Attention will now turn to Belfast next Saturday when Ireland bid to round off their campaign with a second win, Scotland the visitors in round five.

Boosted by a first championship win last weekend against Wales, Ireland had hoped to make life difficult for the Red Roses, who are ranked number one in the world and unbeaten since 2018 in the Six Nations.

However, the gulf in class between the side quickly became obvious in London.

Ireland were completely disjointed in defence and they kicked poorly, too often picking out the lethal Kildunne (below). The full-back picked up the player of the match award.

They failed to resource the ruck and against a side like England, that was always going to be fatal.

The set-piece was off with Ireland conceding a number of penalties at the scrum, before earning a couple themselves late on.

But the lineout never fired and England were able to turn defence into attack easily as Ireland missed 61 tackles.

Tries from Dow, Mo Hunt, Megan Jones and Zoe Alcroft had the bonus point wrapped up by the 18th minute.

Down 26-0 in the 23rd