Rugby World Cup: England thrash South Africa 75-0 extending winning streak to 28

England 75-0 South Africa, Waitakere Stadium, Auckland

England made a strong statement as they eased past South Africa in the final Pool C World Cup game at Waitakere Stadium in Auckland on Sunday.

This is also England's 28th consecutive win as they now face Australia in the quarter-final while South Africa's campaign ends as they lost all their three group games.

Wales also have progressed to the knock out phase where they face host New Zealand while USA will face their Pool B team Canada in the quarter-finals.

It took England just six minutes to get their first try as Rosie Galligan powered her way over after a driving maul that was set up following a collision between Aseza Hele and Holly Aitchison but Zoe Harrison missed out on the conversion.

Shortly, South Africa's Catha Jacobs was sent to sin-bin for a shoulder to the head on tackle on Poppy Cleall, who had to receive some treatment. South Africa even though had a lot of possession they could not convert it into points as the red rose team extended their lead in the opening 30 minutes as England set up an attacking line out at the end of which Cleall went over in the 23rd minute.

South Africa's indiscipline proved costly as another England maul resulted in Galligan completing her second and the fourth try came in the 31st minute as Shaunagh Brown, who was one of the player to be called up to the squad forced her way over to make it 29-0 at the end of the opening half.

England looked more threatening since the restart as the rolling maul proved effective once again with this time Connie Powell diving over and shortly Marlie Packer, captaining the side for the first time also touched down after set up by Cleall making it 43-0.

South Africa looked clueless as Abby Dow and Tatyana Heard sliced their defence for Galligan to complete her hat-trick and Cleall scored her second in the 59th minute as England went on to score 58 unanswered points.

Abby Dow dived over for the 11th try and Powell along with Sadia Kabeya also followed the suit as Simon Middleton's side went on to complete a dominating 75-0 win.

"I'm super happy," Packer said to ITV Sport.

"We said it was going to take all 23 of us to get the job done and that's what happened. I'm just super proud to lead this team out and put a result on like we did.

"We've worked on things in training since the France game. There were a lot of [personnel] changes, a lot of first starts in a World Cup and we can take a lot from this game to build into the quarter-finals now.

"It was just a massive honour for the coaches to believe in me and to lead the team out. It was just amazing."

Team line up:

England: McKenna; Dow, Aitchison, Heard, Breach; Harrison, L Packer; Botterman, Powell, Muir; Galligan, O'Donnell, Talling, M Packer (c), Cleall

Reserves: Cokayne, Cornborough, Bern, Aldcroft, Kabeya, Infante, Scarratt, Rowland

South Africa: Webb; Mabenge, Namba, Qawe, Roos; Jordaan, Kinsey; Charlie, Botes, Latsha, Booi (c), Jacobs, Dumke, Makua, Hele

Reserves: Gunter, Ngxingolo, Mkiva, Mathe, Solontsi, Potgieter, Cilliers, Qawe