England want to be “more clinical” at the Women’s Rugby World Cup, their hooker Amy Cokayne said after the 69-7 thrashing of the USA in Friday’s opening game.
While the Red Roses were dominant on the scoreboard, the performance was not the most efficient, with many try chances going begging because of errors. Cokayne, who is playing in her third World Cup, said England would be frustrated with the points they left out there and also a failure to deal cleanly with the USA’s kicks at restarts.
“There are a few things that didn’t quite go right, so lots for us to work on,” the 29-year-old said. “We’ll look at it, but it is competition rugby. You have got to get a win, haven’t you?
“As forwards, we look at the kick receipt as like our third set piece. It is something we work on quite a lot and it is something we want to go well in games. We know is an easy in for teams to get the ball back.
“We need to be more clinical in the goal zone. When we get in there, we have to come away with points.
“We set ourselves certain standards for each week. We want to be more clinical and more ruthless. A few times we didn’t manage to execute that very well. We are always striving to be better.”
Zoe Aldcroft, the captain, attributed a few errors, particularly in the early stages, down to nerves because it was the start of their campaign. However, Cokayne said there were none from her perspective.
“I don’t really believe in nerves. I think nervousness and excitement are the same thing, it’s just how you look at it. A lot of the girls were excited. It has been an amazing spectacle to come to the Stadium of Light, a massive crowd against a good opposition.”
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The crowd broke the attendance record for an opening Women’s Rugby World Cup game with 42,723 at Sunderland. They watched as England dominate the scrum and Cokayne said in the buildup to the Pool A game that the Red Roses were constantly working on how to find an extra 1% at the set piece.
Cokayne said she felt there was a point to prove: “After the captain’s run, someone asked me whether that was going to be a tough day at the office for us, so we had a bee in our bonnet to put a marker down. Our scrum has been a weapon for us. We work on it every day in training and it is not just three of us [the starting front row]. Everyone is doing their job there.”
The Red Roses travel to Northampton where they will face Samoa on Saturday.
