England’s women are looking to atone for a disappointing 2015 tournament, in which a fourth-placed finish was ill-befitting the world champions. This campaign, little more than a year before they attempt to defend their World Cup, could barely have begun more satisfyingly.

They scored five tries against a Scotland side who battled fiercely but, in truth, offered little more. England will have been pleased, too, to have kept the Scots pointless: the seventh time they have done so in their past eight meetings.

Scotland blew themselves out through some brilliantly desperate first-half tackling from the likes of Jade Konkel, which kept the visitors from scoring for the first quarter, but England proved too strong and their greater fitness showed in the final hour.

The outside centre Lauren Cattell opened the scoring with a breakaway try on 28 minutes after a thrilling burst from deep by Amy Cokayne, before Amber Reed missed both the conversion and a straightforward penalty. In Lanarkshire weather, it was little surprise the fly-half suffered a poor day with the boot.

Harriett Millar-Mills, England’s outstanding back-row forward, scored the first of her two tries seven minutes before the break, crashing over from short range through a defence that was beginning to look understandably tired.

Perhaps sensing that the floodgates would soon burst, Scotland showed greater ambition and enterprise in attack after the break.

Lisa Martin, the 25-year-old fly-half who was recently named as Scotland’s new captain by Shade Munro, their new coach, burst through a gap after a dummy outrageous enough to make Matt Dawson blush. Sadly for her, it was convincing enough that none of her team-mates read it either and the move broke down.

Of course, this approach left more gaps in defence and it was through one of these that Millar-Mills broke to score England’s third. When the visitors set up a driving maul from a lineout minutes later, the outcome looked inevitable and the only question was who would end up at with the ball at the bottom of the pile. Sarah Hunter, the England captain, it turned out.

The final score came with 20 minutes still left, when Lucy Demaine – off the bench for her debut – charged down Martin’s tired kick and crossed for the fifth try.