{"id":312729,"date":"2025-08-02T19:56:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-02T19:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/312729\/"},"modified":"2025-08-02T19:56:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T19:56:12","slug":"helena-rowland-englands-97-7-victory-over-spain-just-the-start-of-the-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/312729\/","title":{"rendered":"Helena Rowland: England\u2019s 97-7 victory over Spain just the start of the journey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The rampant Red Roses ran in 15 tries in Leicester as preparations for a tilt at global glory on home soil began in ruthless fashion.<\/p>\n<p>A dominant display at Welford Road was marred only by a second-half red card for stand-in captain Marlie Packer following an adjudged illegal clearout on Spain\u2019s sole try scorer Claudia Pena.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"525\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Clinical finishing from <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/HelenaRowland99?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@HelenaRowland99<\/a> to bring up the hat-trick \ud83c\udfc9\ud83c\udfc9\ud83c\udfc9<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/RedRoses?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#RedRoses<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Red Roses (@RedRosesRugby) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RedRosesRugby\/status\/1951662515320242614?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">August 2, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>John Mitchell\u2019s side, who were back in action for the first time since completing a Six Nations grand slam in April, play away to France next weekend before beginning their World Cup campaign against the United States on Friday, August 22 in Sunderland.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve got a big few months coming up,\u201d versatile back Rowland, who was making her first Test start on the wing, told BBC Sport.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s all about trying to live every moment. We\u2019ve definitely tried to keep evolving our game. Hopefully it will come together. This is just the start of our journey and hopefully there\u2019s more to come.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Prop Sarah Bern claimed two of England\u2019s tries, while Maddie Feaunati, Lucy Packer, Jess Breach, Jade Shekells, Lilli Ives Campion, Emma Sing, May Campbell, Hannah Botterman, Abby Dow and Megan Jones also crossed for Test rugby\u2019s top-ranked nation.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/2.81168072.jpg\" alt=\"England\u2019s Maud Muir is tackled by Spain\u2019s Anne Fernandez de Corres\" data-title=\"England v Spain \u2013 Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup Warm Up \u2013 Mattioli Woods Welford Road\" data-copyright-holder=\"PA Wire\" data-copyright-notice=\"PA Wire\/PA Images\" data-credit=\"Adam Davy\" data-usage-terms=\"Use subject to restrictions. Editorial use only, no commercial use without prior consent from rights holder.\"  \/>England ruthlessly dispatched Spain in Leicester (Adam Davy\/PA)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t score that many tries so to get three in a game is always nice,\u201d added Rowland.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe put in some pretty nice stuff there, glad to get it off the training park.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s still plenty of things to fix up, as we knew there always would be. It\u2019s the first game after quite a long time. It was enjoyable out there and we\u2019ve got to focus on next week now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The rampant Red Roses ran in 15 tries in Leicester as preparations for a tilt at global glory&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-312729","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114960938482811237","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}