On a day when Scotland’s women reached a first World Cup finals and Welsh hearts were broken, England showed off some impressive strength in depth.

As Wales saw all hope of qualifying for France 2019 extinguished and Jane Ross scored a potentially life-changing winner for Scotland in Albania, the most experimental side of Phil Neville’s short international managerial tenure concluded the Lionesses’ World Cup qualifying campaign with a resounding 6-0 Group One win away to Kazakhstan.

England’s 3-0 victory against Wales in Newport last Friday had already guaranteed they would finish top of the group and booked their ticket to next summer’s showpiece across the Channel.



Inspired by the gifted Kim Little, Scotland will now join them. Shelley Kerr’s side celebrated automatic qualification as winners of Group Two courtesy of Ross’s goal in a 2-1 triumph after Little’s early opener had been cancelled out by an Albanian equaliser.

“It’s not often I’m lost for words but I’m really emotional,” said head coach Shelley Kerr. “We’ve done it the hard way during the campaign but we’ve shown great maturity and determination to succeed. These moments don’t come along too often so I’m absolutely ecstatic and it’ll take a while for it to sink in that we’re off to our first World Cup.”

Captain Rachel Corsie added: “At the final whistle it was hard to know what to do. It was just an incredibly surreal feeling. We need to enjoy that and we will because we deserve to. We always felt comfortable in the game and we created more than enough chances to win it. We knew that second goal was coming and we believed that it would. We persevered and once we got it we controlled the game well. The World Cup is the pinnacle of football and to have the opportunity to go over there and be on that stage with the best teams in the world is going to be incredibly special.”

While the visiting celebrations in Shkoder were ecstatic, things were a little lower key in Pavlodar where England ended their qualifying campaign unbeaten with seven wins and one draw. Between now and next June Neville wants intense, and increased, competition for places in his squad and England’s manager used the opportunity of an ostensibly dead rubber against the group’s bottom side by making 11 changes from the side who started at Rodney Parade. The England team who ran out against Kazakhstan duly contained seven players making their full debuts.

Considering their hosts had scored only twice during a dismal qualifying campaign – and one of those was an own goal – such inexperience did not hamper Neville’s players. By half-time a Beth Mead penalty and another goal from Rachel Daly had put them two up.

Rachel Daly plays her club football for the Houston Dash in the US. Photograph: Lynne Cameron/The FA/Rex/Shutterstock

Neville describes the latter, Houston Dash utility player as “seven footballers all rolled into one” and, deployed as a forward on this occasion, Daly – who has also excelled at left-back recently – once again emphasised her versatility.

Alongside her and Mead, Reading’s Lauren Bruton also shone as she won her first cap but it was Izzy Christiansen – the midfielder who swapped Manchester City for Lyon this summer – who put Neville’s side three up in the 54th minute following Bruton’s cross.

Another debutant, Birmingham’s Lucy Staniforth, - who has overcome two ruptured cruciate ligaments - claimed a 66th-minute fourth before England won another penalty. This time, though, Arsenal’s Mead missed, hitting a post.

Undeterred, Mead soon atoned by shooting the fifth and Bruton created the sixth for the substitute Lucy Bronze as Welsh play-off hopes evaporated.

Although Ludlow’s side, who for a time were above England in their group table and held Neville’s players to a 0-0 draw at Southampton last April, finished second, they were not one of the four best qualifiers across seven groups. Having completed their fixtures, Ludlow’s players were left on tenterhooks waiting to see if other results went their way.

Agonisingly they did not. Germany, Norway and Sweden joined Scotland in clinching automatic qualification Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland and the Netherlands found themselves consigned to the lottery of two play-off games to determine the final European place at France 2019.

Considering the Netherlands are European Champions – they beat England in the semi-finals of Euro 2017 before defeating Denmark in the final – their failure to qualify automatically will be seen as a setback.