THREE Darlington Mowden Park Sharks players were part of the England Women’s team that reached the Women’s Rugby World Cup semi-finals thanks to a 47-26 win over the United States.

Katy McLean, Abbie Scott and Tamara Taylor all started for England as they won their Pool B decider in Dublin.

Going into yesterday’s game, both England and the US had won their two pool matches, but after a physical start from the Eagles, the Red Roses sealed their place in the last four.

Emily Scarratt touched down from McLean’s superbly weighted grubber to open the scoring, then a penalty try and two Marlie Packer scores - all from driving mauls - secured England their try bonus point after 26 minutes.

The United States were next to put points on the board with Kate Zachery scoring a hard-fought try which was sealed with a conversion by inside centre Alev Kelter. However, England quickly countered with Mowden fly-half and former World Cup winner 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, before the US 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.

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

"USA were outstanding today, we knew they were going to be a threat as they have got some fantastic athletes and if you look at some of the tries they scored, they were very difficult to defend against.

"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."

England will play either hosts Ireland or France in the last four next Tuesday.