England flanker Sadia Kabeya believes that England’s forward pack is their best asset after they pipped Australia to top spot in Pool A.
The Red Roses were not at their sparkling best on Saturday, but produced a 47-7 victory over the Wallaroos to set up a quarter-final meeting with Scotland.
Forwards were responsible for six of England’s seven tries on the day, with Kabeya herself scoring a brace. She hopes other teams at the tournament are losing sleep over facing the Red Roses’ pack.
“We have huge carriers in our forward pack,” she pointed out.
“We have threats across the park, it isn’t just the forward pack, but I think hopefully after that performance today, our forward pack is very feared.”
England were slow to start against Australia and were trailing after just six minutes. They roared back into contention, though, tallying 47 unanswered points to confirm their progression.
Kabeya added that she and her teammates had full faith in head coach John Mitchell’s game plan despite the early setback.
“The first half, we definitely got put under a lot of pressure there. We have a lot of stuff to work on going forward, but we ground it out and got the result in the end.
“I think we have a lot of trust in the plan. There was just a few tweaks we needed to make, then we just had to go out there and do what we know we can do.”
The Red Roses will now face Six Nations rival Scotland in the quarter-final. Despite the magnitude of the clash and the prospect of lining up opposite her club teammates, Kabeya insisted she would be keeping a level head.
“I think England will take each game as it comes. For me, I’m gonna be coming up against my Loughborough Lightning teammates, that’ll be interesting, a bit of rivalry there, but for us, each game as it comes.
“We will go back to the drawing board, do our analysis, and get going.”
