England's women's team, including Cumbrian Abbie Scott, sealed their place in the Rugby Union World Cup Semi-Finals with a 47-26 over USA.

They finished top of pool B with three wins and will play France in their last-four clash next Tuesday.

Going into their third and final pool stage game on Wednesday, champions England and USA had won their two pool matches but, at the UCD Billings Park ground, the Red Roses came out on top.

Emily Scarratt touched down from Katy Mclean’s well-timed grubber to open the scoring.

Then a penalty try and two Marlie Packer scores, from driving mauls, earned England their try bonus point after 26 minutes.

USA hit back with Kate Zachery scoring a hard-fought try which was sealed with a conversion by inside centre Alev Kelter.

But England countered with Mclean darting through space to get England up to a 33-7 lead at the break.

England continued scoring in the second half through Amy Wilson-Hardy and Amy Cokayne, although the Eagles secured a late four-try bonus point with full-back Cheta Emba, wings Naya Elena Tapper and Kris Thomas' late efforts taking the full-time score to 47-26.

"We are really pleased that we are now in a semi-final," England head coach Simon Middleton said.

"We would have preferred to finish the game better than we did but we were absolutely outstanding in the first half, we were clear in thought and our execution was fantastic. We had the job done at half-time."

Middleton added: "We have achieved our objective which was to get out of the pool and into a semi-final and we are now looking forward to that challenge."

In the other semi-final, also to be played on Tuesday, New Zealand are set to face USA.

So far, former Keswick School pupil Scott has started two of the Red Roses' three matches at the tournament.