How England’s Red Roses want to use back-to-back losses to Canada in WXV Global Series as ‘learning opportunity’

Emma Sing knows England have had a tough run in the WXV Global Series after back-to-back defeats snapped a 41-game winning streak – but is hoping to turn the moment into a learning opportunity.

The successive losses to Canada marked the first time the Red Roses had lost twice in a row in a decade.

Not only that, Canada’s 24-21 defeat in Toronto, which they backed up in Ottawa, brought their four-year unbeaten run to an end.

England started the series with a 48-15 win against Australia but have since drew once with Canada, beat New Zealand, then suffered those back-to-back defeats.

While it marks what looks like the start of a new building era for England, Sing is choosing to look at it as a chance to regroup and set a target for in the future for this young side to build for, namely the next Rugby World Cup in 2029 in Australia.

“We were never going to keep winning forever. We did really well getting to 41 wins on the bounce,” Sing said.

“In order to like develop now, there is quite a young squad, there are some new players coming in, younger players in, especially around the forwards.

“We are just developing now and like the big goal is the next World Cup.

“It is not nice losing but we’re learning from that and we’ll be able to like turn that around and hopefully put on a performance this weekend.

“Now it gives us a proper opportunity to reflect and have those honest conversations that may not have been potentially answered if we were still winning.

“It allows us to develop better, to have the honest conversations and to improve.”

Next up for England to finish their Global Series is a contest against USA on October 30.

While a different prospect to Canada, Sing is hoping that England can use the match to work out some of their kinks in attack and use those adjustments as they turn their focus to the Six Nations.

“They’ve been playing some really good rugby. They’ve obviously been playing against some of our fellow Six Nations opposition, which is like a bit different for them,” she added.

“We are going to do our analysis on them. It will be a bit different from playing Canada again, but it’ll be quite nice, a bit of a change and there is going to be different opportunities for us to go after.

“The focus is really on like us and like making the adjustments to our game.

“We are just looking at this as the first step in our building blocks towards Six Nations.

“That is six months away but if we can start implementing stuff now then it will put us in a much better position come Six Nations.”