Archive August 9, 2025

One thousand and one days and counting.

That is how long it has been since England lost a match, which agonisingly came in the final of the 2022 World Cup against hosts and perennial champions New Zealand.

It is a winning streak that now stretches to 27 games following a comprehensive 40-6 away victory in France, which served as England’s final warm-up before the home 2025 World Cup.

And this was a win which, perhaps more than any of the previous 26, sends a statement that the Red Roses are the team to beat.

France are no slouches. Ranked fourth in the world, they pushed England all the way in a 43-42 thriller during the Six Nations in April. There is a strong possibility these sides will meet at Ashton Gate in Bristol for a World Cup semi-final.

But this England side, bursting with physicality, confidence and a sense of destiny, chose this moment to register their biggest winning margin over the French for 30 matches, a run stretching back to 2009.

That winning margin owed as much to not conceding a try as it did to scoring six, with head coach John Mitchell crediting defence coach Sarah Hunter, who captained England in the World Cup three years ago.

“Sarah’s a very good coach,” he said. “She understands our system very well. She understands the girls very well and they love her to bits as well, they respect her hugely.

“It’s very helpful that she’s been part of the system from day one. There’s been a few areas that we’ve looked at and we feel that if we keep looking at those we’ll eventually get the transfer.”

This XV which started at Stade Andre et Guy Boniface in Mont-de-Marsan is likely to be very similar to the one which commences the World Cup campaign in 13 days’ time against the United States at the Stadium of Light in Sunderland.

There were 11 changes to the team which hammered Spain 97-7, including world player of the year Ellie Kildunne returning to the back line.

Kildunne was not able to add to a record of 14 tries in her last 10 Tests, but showed moments that indicate why she could be the star of the World Cup.

One player who stole the spotlight and perhaps inked their name on the cast list for opening night is fly-half Zoe Harrison.

One of four players to keep their starting spot from the win over Spain, Harrison did not let seeing her first conversion rebound off the posts to put her off.

A large part of England’s success in France came through kicking for the corner, dominating the line-out then rolling a maul over the tryline. Harrison’s kicking was pinpoint and lengthy, allowing the plan to function.

Holly Aitchison has been the main rival for the 10 shirt in recent years, but Harrison has definitely put her best foot forward in the run up to the World Cup.

Other spots are uncertain. Only one of the six tries was scored by a back – centre Megan Jones. Given their wealth of riches in that area, they should produce more.

And of course we have been here before. During the last World Cup England were on a long winning run and reliant on tries scored via forward power. They will need to find other routes in August and September.

There are players to return. Wing Claudia Moloney-MacDonald and Aitchison, contenders for starting spots in a first-choice backline, are still managing knocks, as is veteran centre Emily Scarratt, who suffered a head injury before her fifth World Cup.

Mitchell may be asking for daily medical updates on those three.

Among the forwards, it was all positive in the south of France. Following such a dominant display and some standout moments from open-side Sadia Kabeya, it will be fascinating to see if Marlie Packer returns to the back row.

The 35-year-old flanker is a Red Roses legend, but was not missed amid a suspension because of her red card against Spain.

After the match Mitchell highlighted the performances of prop Maud Muir, Kabeya and his captain Zoe Aldcroft, who also praised try-scorer Muir.

“Maud is a fantastic player,” Aldcroft said. “She’s an absolute bulldozer in attack, and in the scrum as well she’s formidable. She’s very quick, deceptively quick, and very powerful.”

As far as headaches go, there are only fairly mild ones for Mitchell. A few things to tidy up, with a mind on those painful final losses to New Zealand, but these are minor script tweaks, not a full rewrite.

He added: “We’re going to be thrown a lot of challenges when the tournament starts so we’ve just got be ready for anything and to be able to adapt, and the girls have managed this particular week very, very well.

“It’s a privilege to have pressure. We’ve earnt it over the three-year cycle so it’s not something we are going to walk away from, we’re going to walk towards it.”

Emma Raducanu brushed aside Olga Danilovic at the Cincinnati Open to make a confident start with her new coach.

The British number one has added Rafael Nadal’s former coach Francis Roig to her team on a full-time basis as she prepares for the upcoming US Open.

And the surprise 2021 champion in New York cruised to a 6-3 6-2 win in her first match since the Spaniard came aboard.

Danilovic beat British number three Katie Boulter in the first round while Raducanu had a bye, and the Serbian number one broke Raducanu to love in the first game of Saturday’s match.

After four breaks of serve between the pair in the opening five games, Raducanu came from 30-0 down to grab another and make it 5-3.

The 22-year-old won seven points in a row to bring up three set points and took the first with an ace.

In the second set, Raducanu drew errors from her 24-year-old opponent and eventually earned a break for 3-2.

From that point the world number 39, ranked four spots higher than Danilovic, did not drop another game as she booked her spot in the third round in Ohio.

Raducanu is playing in the WTA 1,000 event for the first time since 2022 and could next face world number one Aryna Sabalenka, against whom she suffered a narrow Wimbledon defeat last month.

Earlier, Poland’s Iga Swiatek eased through to the last 32 as the Wimbledon champion claimed a 6-1 6-4 win over Russian Anastasia Potapova.

In Cincinnati’s ATP draw, Colombia’s Daniel Elahi Galan proved no match for Italy’s world number one Jannik Sinner who won through 6-1 6-1 in his first match since claiming his maiden Wimbledon title.

However, eighth seed Lorenzo Musetti from Italy was bounced out by Benjamin Bonzi, with the Frenchman, ranked 63rd in the world, fighting back to win 5-7 6-4 7-6 (7-4).

Another Frenchman regrouped to pull off an upset as 70th-ranked Arthur Rinderknech beat Norway’s Casper Ruud, the 11th seed, 6-7 (5-7) 6-4 6-2.

New ownership, a new head coach, nearly a full team of new players, but the man charged with improving fortunes on the pitch has been left insisting there is “no quick fix” after familiar failings reappeared to blight Rangers at the start of the new season.

Russell Martin’s rebuilt side remain unbeaten in five games under the former Southampton boss.

But two of those have been draws in their opening matches in the Scottish Premiership – something the former Rangers defender knows is not good enough for a side expecting to challenge reigning champions Celtic for the title.

Lauded for their 3-0 win over Viktoria Plzen in Champions League qualifying on Tuesday, the same Rangers players were booed off after escaping defeat thanks to a late penalty against a Dundee side many expected to be lambs to the slaughter.

Having finished 15 points adrift of their city rivals last season, Rangers are already a one behind Celtic before Brendan Rodgers’ side play their game in hand in Aberdeen on Sunday.

If Rangers get through their Euro tie after Tuesday’s second leg against Plzen, they will postpone the league match against St Mirren on 24 August to prepare for the play-off tie, which means they could be seven behind by the time Celtic visit Ibrox the following week.

They could have been even worse off. It can be argued they were fortunate to escape Motherwell with a point last weekend, while Rangers had to play the final half hour against Dundee with 10 men before captain James Tavernier came off the bench to rescue another with his late spot kick.

A “disappointed” Martin admitted: “There was just general lethargy and no speed in the first half.”

After last week’s draw at Fir Park, Martin had questioned the mentality of some of his players, complaining that some “have to drop their ego”, and was delighted with the reaction against Plzen.

This time, he was “pleased with the response of the team when we went down to 10 men and we could’ve won the game in the end, but the mentality has to come from the very first kick of the match”.

Martin accepted some of the blame, admitting: “In hindsight, I should’ve made some changes to inject that energy in the team, but I explained my decision before the game and maybe I could’ve changed that now the game is finished.

“We’re learning about the group all the time, so that’s a lesson learnt today.”

BBC pundit and former Rangers striker Steven Thompson described them as “Jekyll and Hyde” but pointed out that the same happened under the previous two team bosses – Philippe Clement and Barry Ferguson – last season.

Saturday’s draw was particularly galling to Rangers fans considering Dundee arrived with a poor start to their season heaping pressure on their new head coach, former Rangers defender Steven Pressley.

Dundee, who managed just two attempts on goal in their opening Premiership defeat at home to Hibernian, had not beaten Rangers in their previous 17 meetings and had lost their latest 19 visits to Ibrox.

The passing style being adopted under Martin meant centre-half John Souttar attempted 131 passes in this game, the highest of any player in the opening two weekends, the team overall attempted 709, again the highest of any team, and their 20 goal attempts were highest too.

Yet they still relied on a penalty to rescue a draw and have now failed to win both of their opening two league matches for the first time since 1989.

Martin could understand the reaction of the home support.

“The fans have lacked the success they want for quite some time, so I understand the frustration,” he said. “I didn’t get too high on Tuesday, so we’re not going to get too low today.

“We are at a point now at this club where something needed to change.

“The ownership has changed, there’s a new coaching staff, there’s new players, there’s hopefully a new way of behaving in the training ground – properly, every single day, regarding standards and what’s expected at this football club. So it’s not a quick fix and this is not me coming out and making excuses.

“I think we change the manager from year to year and nothing really changes.

Former Rangers striker and assistant boss Billy Dodds told BBC Radio Scotland’s Sportsound: “Russell Martin wants the players to put their egos to bed and concentrate on the football.

“But I think they need more egos at the club because egos come with top players.

“It took a man being sent off to get them going, but they deserved that draw in the end because they kept going at it.”

Like last season, Rangers found it difficult to break down a team domestically who sat back to defend their penalty box at Ibrox – and Thompson gave credit to Pressley.

“He has had a lot of stick in the early part of the season, but he got his tactics spot on,” he said.

Right-back Tavernier and midfielder Nicolas Raskin were two of four players dropped in midweek and were again on the bench against Dundee.

However, Tavernier came on to prove his goalscoring worth once more, while Martin admitted that “Raskin was great when he game on. He tackled more than the whole team”.

Meanwhile, centre-half Nasser Djiga is now in line to miss the Old Firm derby through suspension after his last-man red card against Dundee.

It leaves Martin with questions over his personnel as matches come thick and fast.

Former Rangers forward Gordon Smith pointed out that Rangers were better when down to 10 men and were unfortunate that Cyriel Dessers was denied a late winner for offside.

However, he was left pondering: “How can they put that kind of performance in Europe and not in the league?”