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England already look to improve on Ireland win

Lilli Ives Campion
England U20s skipper Lilli Ives Campion believes that her team are only scratching the surface of their potential after an impressive opening victory over Ireland in the Women’s Summer Series.

The second row crossed twice in the 33-10 win against Ireland, with England seizing the initiative early as the got four first-half tries.

In sapping conditions, they then showed their defensive steel in the second half, and Ives Campion warned that there is much more to come from the side, who lost to France and beat Wales in warm-up matches earlier this year.

She said: “We’re absolutely buzzing. We’ve been a long time training off the back of that France game and the Wales game.

“We came out, it wasn’t our best performance but we’ve put a really strong foot forward looking to the rest of the tournament. We’ve done pretty well but there are still a lot of mistakes that we need to rectify going into the Wales game.

“I’m excited with where we are but we are just scratching the surface of what we can do.”

England took control within two minutes thanks to Tori Sellors’ try and looked very slick in the first half with a combination of powerful runners and speed out wide.

Ives Campion was particularly opportunistic, getting over from close range on two occasions as England made their territorial dominance pay.

And while she believes their execution still has a huge margin for improvement, the skipper was delighted with her team.

She added: “We are definitely trying to do something, it’s the execution part that we need to sort. But credit to the girls, in 27 degrees, we pulled through and put a good performance together so I’m very proud of them.

“The heat has been a lot. Now that we’ve got this game out of the way, we know what to expect. Conserving energy in these games is going to be really important and maximising potential with our execution.

“Even in the last week, we have progressed a lot. I can’t express enough how proud I am of the players. It’s all about building.”

England will now turn their attentions to a second match against Wales on Tuesday, before closing out their campaign against France.