Reaction to the Red Roses' bonus-point win against Ireland
Hear from Zoe Harrison and Red Roses attack coach Lou Meadows following England's 5-49 win against Ireland in the third round of the 2025 Guinness Women's Six Nations.
Zoe Harrison played an impressive game, scoring a try and kicking 12 points from her boot.
She said: "The first half was really tough, but it was about being patient and taking our time to get there. [Ireland] attack was fantastic, so credit to them, but we needed to get our momentum back and be better than their defence. We talked at half time and came back out and switched the game completely, putting right what we were doing wrong.
"Our half time talk was about where we were putting pressure on ourselves, where we were getting success and how to take the pressure off us.
"We thought how can we beat them coming off the line like that, can we take a bit of depth or kill their line speed. They were coming out hard in the middle so we had to think how can we get around that and put them under pressure."
Lou Meadows added: "We really enjoyed that test, it's something we need to have first halves like that where teams are really challenging one another. It was a physical battle and about winning the collision and we just didn't do that in the first half. We thought how do we fix this, what do we go after next. We have a good set piece which we achieved in the second half.
"We got into the oppositions 22 eight times but just didn't finish and our execution let us down, and that's something we wanted to work on. We spoke about it in the changing room and the girls were really calm and knew exactly what to do and they proved that in the second half.
"We knew we had to win the carry and we spoke about how they could achieve that. We had to keep it simple, if you over complicate it and over think it then you're not just doing. So we wanted to clear it up, keep it simple, win that collision and then we can play fast. When we play fast is when we can destructure their defence and really get after those spaces.
"I spoke about wanting to create more variety in the way we attack and you can see that in the connections between the forwards and backs. Our forwards have such good skill sets and are continuing to grow in that area and look what we produced as a result of it."
