By John Birch
The opening day of this year's European Trophy was one of mixed results - one of the closest games in the history of women's international rugby being followed by one of the most one-sided.
England A sneaked to a 5-0 win over Italy in a game that appears to have been riddled with mistakes. The game began well, full-back Kay Wilson scored following good work by both forwards and backs - but after that things went less well with arange of handling errors.
This appeared to have raised the confidence of the far more experienced Italian opposition (an "A" team in name alone!) allowing them to overcome the problem that Italian teams seem to have had when facing teams called "England", and by the end of the game it was the women in white who were very much on the defence.
But defend they did, winning ugly in the end - which is always said to be the sign of a good team. As a result they should now reach the final as only the Netherlands and Russia are in their way. The former would normally be seen as something of a threat at this level, but without most of their leading players (now contracted to play only Sevens) the Dutch lost to Russia in their opening game. It was another tight game - 17-10 - but the Dutch have never lost to the Russia before, or even come close. Of course this might - and probably does - also indicate some improvements in Russian rugby, but regardless of how much Russia have have improved it is unlikely that they will trouble England A.
While the games in Pool B were tight, Pool A was a different matter. The hopes for Sweden repeating their impressive performance against France at the World Cup would have been slight even before most of the Swedish squad either retired or decided to concentrate on Sevens. As a result France's 40-3 win was what most observers expected.
Finland, given a rugby lesson by their Spanish hosts
A similar win was expected for Spain against the novice Finnish XV - what was not expected was a cold, clinical massacre. 119-0 is the fourth highest margin of victory ever - and in a game that was only 70 minutes long instead of the usual 80 (Trophy games are 35 minutes each way, for reasons no-one has ever explained).
Spain and France meet in the next round of games, on Tuesday, and that should reveal who is most likely to face England in next Sunday's final
Day One Results:
Sweden 3 France 40
Spain 119 Finland 0
Italy 0 England 5
Holland 10 Russia 17
John Birch writes a women's rugby blog here
