England’s Vitality Roses began their Nations Cup in fine fashion as they beat world number seven Malawi in Nottingham.
The Vitality Roses entered the competition following a historic couple of months, with the side winning at world number one Australia for only the third time ever.
The team also won the Taini Jamison cup, beating world number two New Zealand for just the second time in history as they won in the first two games of the three match test series.
Playing South Africa, Uganda and Malawi- who are ranked fifth, sixth and seventh in the world respectively- will mean that England will have played all six teams around them in the top seven.
It was a turbulent start for the Vitality Roses who raced into an 8-3 lead before having their lead reduced to 8-6.
England however regained their composure as they defended from a Malawi fightback in the latter stages of the opening quarter to go into the first break 17-13 ahead.
The Roses gained further control in the second quarter as they pushed into a 31-24 lead largely thanks to forward Olivia Tchine.
England really began to stamp their authority on the game in the penultimate quarter as they restricted Malawi to just eight goals as they stretched their lead to eleven goals.
A late flurry for England helped the Roses to a comfortable 62-36 win.
Following the win Player of The Match and England debutant Paige Reed spoke to Platform Magazine.
“We had goals and objectives to the game and I felt that we stuck to them well,” Paige said.
“It’s really to surreal, I’ve been in the program for a while and I feel that my transition felt seem less because the girls all came around and I just felt ready,” she added.
Towards the end of the game, forward Olivia Tchine was withdrawn through injury with Paige stepping into the goal shooter position.
“It [losing Olivia to injury] was obviously something we couldn’t imagine to have happened but we still needed to regroup as much as it hurt us to see her get injured, we still had another quarter to go,” Paige said.
On Sunday (February 2), England face South Africa before they head to London next weekend to round of their Nations Cup campaign.
Featured image credit: Morgan Harlow