Red Roses open stadium in style with New Zealand win

Never let it be said that these Red Roses don’t know how to throw a housewarming party.

- HARRY LATHAM-COYLE

On the day that the retitled Allianz Stadium was officially opened, a side increasingly making the venue feel like home proved that they are too good even for the world champions.

New Zealand may be the only team to have beaten the Red Roses in their last 48 matches but England were off their game for long periods here and still emerged as relatively comfortable victors. It is only 11 months now until the World Cup begins, and 54 weeks until these two are likely to have another date with destiny here in the final. The nagging question of whether England are now so excellent that they will cruise to glory on their own turf next September remains.

A similarly sized gap was closed quickly by the Black Ferns in 2022, but they will not enjoy the comforts of home this time around. England, meanwhile, are going from strength to strength under John Mitchell – not everything worked in the Twickenham sunshine but there was enough to show why they are red-hot favourites for the tournament.

“It was a satisfying performance,” Mitchell said. “We went through a patchy start and then built some really good pressure and unstructured play. We then had an opportunity to finish them but we didn’t finish them through letting them off with penalties. When you’ve got the foot on the throat, [you’ve got to] finish it. Our discipline in the last 20 metres of the field let them off the hook. We had them exactly where we wanted them. It’s good and exactly what we wanted – to get lessons at this time of year.”