Wallaroos scare England but fail 'mission impossible'

Australia's rugby women have given England's world champions a run for their money by leading sensationally at halftime -- but the Wallaroos' dream of downing the seemingly invincible Red Roses inevitably crumbled as they ended up succumbing to a heavy 48-15 defeat in Salford.

England were stunned in the first 40 minutes of their WXV Global Series opener at the CorpAcq Stadium on Saturday (Sunday AEST) as the Australians went in to the break with a 10-5 lead but any outlandish hopes of handing the hosts their first defeat after 38 straight victories was, almost inevitably, buried after the break.

The John Mitchell-coached world champs, initially rusty in their first outing since being crowned European grand slam champions in May and struggling to adapt to the new smaller 4.5 ball being trialled, ran in eight tries in total as their set-piece finally began to tick over to their normal high efficiency.

But Australia could be proud of their efforts, deserving their halftime lead as they controlled the breakdown and defended stoically even after being reduced to 14 for 10 minutes in the first period when halfback Samantha Wood was sin-binned for a deliberate knock-on.

Still, they went in to the break with the lead thanks to barnstorming prop Faliki Pohiva rumbling her way over for a try, but England were hardly inconvenienced, despite their initial rustiness.

"It is an absolute joke if you are worried about being down 10-5," suggested Mitchell afterwards -- and the response of his team demonstrated they were surely never really concerned.

"More important is how we worked our way back into it ... It was a 43-point second-half."

In front of a crowd of 9,251, England did indeed begin to turn it on, with May Campbell, captain Meg Jones, Bryony Field, Mia Venner and Sadia Kabeya all crossing for tries in a 20-minute spell to add to player-of-the-match Abi Burton's first-half score.

Lucy Packer and Claudia Moloney-MacDonald also then went over, with Asoiva Karpani scoring a second for the Wallaroos late on amid the hammering.

Meanwhile, Scotland were swept aside 64-26 in Edinburgh as Canada warmed up in style for their World Cup final rematch against England in Exeter next weekend.