Jill Scott revealed her pride in her England teammates for refusing to take Cameroon’s bait and instead focusing on winning through to the quarter-finals.
England’s most experienced Women's World Cup player used all her nous on Sunday afternoon to help Phil Neville’s side shut out the distractions of multiple VAR reviews and opposition histrionics to secure a 3-0 win and a last-eight tie against Norway on Thursday.
And after surviving a game when Toni Duggan was spat upon, Steph Houghton suffered a shocking studs-up challenge and Nikita Parris was elbowed in the face, Scott was delighted to progress.
She said: “I don’t think I’ll ever play in another game like that, to be honest.
"There were a lot of VAR incidents and a lot of protests. It kind of had everything. I think one thing that I’m proud of is how logical this team stayed and we just focused on the next moment that we could control. I thought we did that fantastically well.”
FIFA are now set to throw the book at Cameroon, whose players harassed the referee and refused to restart the game for nearly a minute after England’s second goal was awarded by VAR.
Scott added: “We knew it was going to be physical and that if you took three or four touches on the ball you’d probably get it taken off you. I think we moved the ball well at times and that we’re growing nicely in this tournament.
“Hopefully we can continue that on Thursday.
“There was obviously a few rough challenges, but you know in games like this everybody is just so desperate to get to the next round.
“I think that was the same for Cameroon and they probably knew we were going to be technically too good for them, so they probably had to play a more physical game and I think that’s probably what you have seen.”
The BBC revealed that Sunday’s clash set a new record as the UK’s most watched women’s football match, with a peak television audience of 6.9million.
