Rugby League World Cup: Jillaroos beat England 78-0 as Julia Robinson breaks wrist

Another dominant outing for the Jillaroos, who look utterly unstoppable in this tournament.

Hopefully some of that energy can be transferred to the Kangaroos tomorrow night when they take on Fiji at Lang Park in Brisbane.

We’ll be covering that one live too. I hope to see you there.

One day she’ll play a bad game. Surely.

Australia captain Isabelle Kelly did a jersey swap and rocked into her post-match interview with Channel Seven in the England kit.

Unfortunately, when asked who she’s wearing, Kelly draws a blank.

You can see the cogs turning before she has to sheepishly say: “It was the number two.”

That’s Anna Davies by the way.

That was a complete demolition by this Jillaroos team that responded to a middling performance against Samoa last week (they still won 40-0) with a masterclass against England tonight.

The Australians certainly had a goal to make amends for being below their best last week but even by their standards that was dominant.

They completed at 80 per cent and refused to let up with ball in hand, but clearly prided themselves on the defence and desperately wanted to keep England to zero this time.

Tarryn Aiken unleashes Sarah Togatuki on halfway and again she makes it to the fullback with options galore.

Aiken is the primary one on her left, but Togatuki looks her off, prompting the halfback to throw her arms out. Instead, Togatuki swerves right and hits Wests Tigers teammate Shaylee Bent, who fends off Amelia Brown and Fran Goldthorp to score.

Another new player gets on the scorers’ sheet.

Off the scrumbase, the English defence is preoccupied with Tamika Upton at first receiver and that allows her to create a two on one with Isabelle Kelly and Jaime Chapman up against poor old Anna Davies.

Kelly goes herself and is in for her second.

The crossfield kick is knocked on by England and comes down to Jaime Chapman, who’s wrapped up and just hands the ball over, not realising the tackle count restarted.

Mercifully for her, there’s no advantage taken by the Aussies so it’s a double knock-on and the Jillaroos will have the scrum feed.

It looks like she’s had her left elbow caught up in a tackle might have hyper-extended it.

She was in real pain and looked very concerned, but after a bit of strapping she’s up and returning to her spot at fullback behind the English defensive line.

The Jillaroos go close with Jaime Chapman on the left and spin it the entire width of the field. Tiana Penitani Gray draws and passes to Abbi Church on the right wing but Amelia Brown double defends superbly to bring Church down and into touch.

The Jillaroos fullback cuts through the defence yet again and looks nailed on for a try or at least another try assist, but she just drops the ball cold.

I’m not sure how. Maybe she bumped the ball on her hip and that knocked it loose. Either way, a chance goes begging.

Well, England, but as far as the Jillaroos go.

The entire starting backline except, hilariously, for Tamika Upton has scored, plus Tiana Penitani Gray.

Then there’s lock Olivia Kernick and bench forwards Makenzie Weale and Quincy Dodd.

So the rest of the forward pack needs to lift here.

England winger Amelia Brown drops a bomb cold and the Jillaroos waste no time exploiting it, firing a ball to Tiana Penitani Gray to scythe in between the centre and winger.

Jocelyn Kelleher curls in a conversion from the right sideline and that’s 70-0 to the Jillaroos with 15 minutes still to play.

There’s miscommunication between Quincy Dodd, Tarryn Aiken and Jocelyn Kelleher on the last as Dodd’s pass goes to ground between the halves on the left side of the field.

Kelleher tracks back and doesn’t panic for a moment, sprinting around the back to give her teammates time to get back behind her on the right side of the field. She chips for herself, regathers and passes under pressure, and Tamika Upton finds Abbi Church to dive over on the right wing for a sensational try.

That is some gorgeous dummy-half play by Quincy Dodd to get out to the right of the ruck and pass it back inside to Simaima Taufa. The prop forward does exceptionally well looking left to Olivia Kernick before flicking the ball back to Dodd, who is almost brought down short of the line but manages to keep her arm up and slam the ball down.

The tries belonged to the outside backs in the first half, but now the middles are getting involved.

England gives away an eighth penalty to walk the Jillaroos into good field position.

Lock Olivia Kernick slots into first receiver, throws the dummy to Makenzie Weale to freeze the defence and then crashes over to score under the posts.

Abbi Church is unleashed down the right and steps back inside to take the tackle.

After the play the ball, the Aussies reload back down the short right side and this time Tiana Penitani Gray sets up halfback Tarryn Aiken to get in on the act.

A swirling crossfield kick by England halfback Jenna Foubister catches Jaime Chapman too deep. She has to make up ground late to get to the ball and does so, but can’t handle.

Unfortunately for England, she knocks it back and the Jillaroos keep the momentum rolling as Jocelyn Kelleher scoops up the ball and flies upfield.

And they manage to stay on side and keep the ball in the field of play.

First test passed.

Jillaroos coach Jess Skinner has options at her disposal to replace Julia Robinson going forward.

Tiana Penitani Gray is an over-qualified replacement for this game, so I doubt Australia will slow down too much, but in future matches I’m not certain what direction she will go.

Obviously captain Isabelle Kelly will hold down that left centre spot, but Penitani Gray could absolutely stay on the right with Jess Sergis slotting onto the wing. Or Sergis could come back into the centres and Abbi Church can keep her spot on the wing.

The Jillaroos leave the field in Perth beaming after scoring seven tries to a pointless England, but in the meantime Julia Robinson is on the way to hospital after a broken wrist.

Arguably the best centre/winger in the game, Robinson is a big out for the Jillaroos, but they have the troops to cover it with Sharks and Blues star Tiana Penitani Gray slotting in at right centre.

Olivia Kernick and Quincy Dodd break through the middle of the park to get England retreating and the Jillaroos waste no time getting the ball out to the right for Abbi Church to break free.

The defence looks like it might be closing, but she steps hard inside off her right foot to beat fullback Fran Goldthorp and get her name on the scorers’ sheet.

Jodie Cunningham is still undergoing her HIA and now they’ve lost back rower Eva Hunter to what looks like a nasty knee injury.

She appeared to be in tears on the ground in the back play and can’t put any weight on her left leg as she’s helped off the field.

Tamika Upton has done damage with her running game this evening, but this time it’s a lovely face ball that unleashes captain Isabelle Kelly to power over the line.

The second gamer gets her second try of the day after Olivia Kernick’s charge collapses the defence in the middle of the park.

The Jillaroos spin it left and again Jocelyn Kelleher has options but chooses to go herself and barrels over the line.

Just after Robinson’s injury, Sarah Togatuki and England captain Jodie Cunningham have a nasty head clash. The blood is flowing from the forehead of both players, but only Cunningham is coming off and doing so pretty groggily. Togatuki gets strapped up and goes again.

The Jillaroos centre hits Amelia Brown on a kick chase and gets her left arm pinned between Brown and Aussie back rower Shaylee Bent.

Robinson comes straight out of the tackle holding her left arm or wrist and she’s immediately off the field. That looks like a nasty break the way she reacted.

Sariah Paki comes on for her first minutes in green and gold, slotting into the back row with Tiana  Penitani Gray moving from left back row to right centre.

The Jillaroos run it on the last from 35 metres out and Isabelle Kelly’s break earns them six more tackles.

They waste no time spinning it right and the world is Julia Robinson’s oyster as she hits the ball at speed with the defence sliding and retreating. She tucks the ball under and crashes over for Australia’s fourth.

The lead is 22-0 after 17 minutes.

The kick return metres are already almost at 100 for Tamika Upton as she bursts through the tackle Isabel Rower and streaks upfield. It looks like she may have blown a try-scoring opportunity as she comes to Fran Goldthorp and can’t quite set up Olivia Kernick, but instead she just shrugs off the would-be tackle and finds Jocelyn Kelleher on her left to go over instead.

Anna Davies thinks she’s got one back on opposite number Jaime Chapman, but Davies runs out of room as Chapman does just enough to get hands on her and force her into touch before grounding the ball.

After England fullback Fran Goldthorp takes a brilliant catch coming forward, the bomb to end England’s set looks less threatening as Jaime Chapman comes forward to reel it in, but it just gets low on her and she knocks it on.

Jocelyn Kelleher hoofs it across the park and gets it up over the head of Anna Davies, with Jaime Chapman pulling off a brilliant leaping grab at full stretch and controlling the ball down to the turf.

Two kick-offs, two inexcusable blunders by England.

Australia is going to do enough to win this, you don’t need to help them.

The Jillaroos are flinging the ball around the park.

Julia Robinson threatens on the right before it comes back left.

There’s a bit of a scramble, but eventually the ball finds its way out to the left flank, where Tiana Penitani Gray, playing in the back row, leans on her centre skills to draw and pass for Jaime Chapman to go over untouched.

England struggles in its first set with the ball in hand and the kick barely crosses halfway, where it’s marked by Tamika Upton, who flies through a gap with a little swerve and step and goes 45 metres to put the Jillaroos into the red zone.

England kicks off and straight away Australia is on the attack as the English players were offside off the kick-off.

A disastrous start for the heavy underdogs.

After all the column inches and talkback hours filled by discussions about Australian teams’ commitment to singing the anthem, the Channel Seven cameras opted against the traditional tracking shot all the way down the team list.

Some sang, some didn’t, their choice, let’s play footy.

This double header in Perth is another big moment for rugby league with the Perth Bears just months away from coming into the NRL.

Every game out west is a chance to attract fans to the game, and they got a glimpse of potential Bears signing AJ Brimson in his man-of-the-match performance in England’s 82-0 win over France.

Who will light up the women’s clash?

Two debutants for Australia with Makenzie Weale and dual international Sariah Paki set to come off the bench.

For England, James Graham on Channel Seven is perplexed by Newcastle’s* Georgia Roche being benched and Canterbury’s* Hope Millard being named as 18th player.

* Newcastle and Canterbury in Australia, not England.

After weathering the first 20 minutes, things turned ugly in a hurry for France against England.

Dom Young, Matty Ashton and Herbie Farnworth scored three tries in three minutes to start the rout, and by half-time it was six tries to nil, with Farnworth already having completed his hat-trick.

The break appeared to only breathe life into the Poms, who kept their foot on the gas with eight more tries — including a hat-trick for Young — to run out 82-0 winners.

It’s an important victory for England, with for-and-against vital to its chances of progressing to the knockout stage.

Hi Mike,

No, the women’s side of the Cup is more traditional.

While the men have one main pool and a combined Pool C and B, their are only two groups of four women’s teams with the top two in each group progressing to the semifinals.

Interestingly, heading into tonight’s game England is actually leading the Jillaroos in Pool A courtesy of a 70-6 win over Wales, while Australia beat Samoa by a paltry 40-0.

Once upon a time it was Australia, New Zealand, England and then, far in the distance, the rest of the rugby league world.

At this year’s tournament, there are perhaps no more exciting teams than Tonga and Samoa.

Myles Houlbrook-Walk breaks it down …

No-one is pretending these round two games have been all-time classic contests, but in a sport where the international scene is continuing to grow, you have to find the hope where you can.

And Nick Campton has done just that …

Tries, and lots of them.

This second round always shaped as a weekend of one-sided contests.

It started on Friday with a combined 112-0 scoreline between the Samoa vs Wales (76-0) in the women’s tournament, and a 36-0 win by Tonga over Lebanon in the men’s.

Today has continued the trend so far, with Samoa’s men demolishing Papua New Guinea 64-6 and the Fijian women continuing a tough day for the fans in Port Moresby with a 40-4 win over the Orchids.

And, as we speak, England has emerged from the half-time break leading France 36-0 in Perth.

Hello and welcome to ABC Sport’s live coverage of tonight’s Women’s Rugby League World Cup showdown between Australia’s Jillaroos and England.

We’re expecting to see plenty of points tonight, but can the English pull off the mother of all upsets?

The way this weekend has gone so far would suggest not, but that’s why they play the games.

Hang around as we bring you every moment and catch you up on what’s happened so far in round two.