28 and counting: Inside England's incredible winning streak ahead of Wallaroos clash

You will struggle to find a team in better form in International sport, let alone Rugby, than the Red Roses.The Wallaroos are the latest team tasked with dealing with the juggernaut that is Simon Middleton's English side as they prepare for Sunday's quarter-final in Auckland.The 3rd place seeding is misleading for a side that has built an incredible 28-game winning streak, only ranked behind Canada and New Zealand due to having to face fourth-ranked France in the group stages.For context, current Men's world number one France has the highest current streak within tier one nations, enjoying a 10-game win streak since they were defeated by the Wallabies in July 2021.It surpasses what Eddie Jones achieved with their male counterparts, tieing the All Blacks with an 18-game winning streak, whilst Cyprus claims the record for a men's side with 24 games playing in the third division of European Rugby.Captain Sarah Hunter has been a consistent figure through the journey and the wins, set to break Rocky Clark's record for most England caps with 138 in Sunday's match, expressing her pride at the growth of the program.“We’re in the fortunate opportunity that this group can be a professional Rugby player and do it as their job,” Hunter told Rugby.com.au before the tournament.“Some of the girls that play in the squad have only ever known being a professional Rugby player, they’ve gone straight from school into a professional program so they haven’t had to have anything else.“It’s incredible that they now don’t have to worry about the stresses we had to in the past…I think it's great young girls watching Rugby can look and dream and say 'that’s what they want to do as a job'. When I was young, I didn’t even know there was a team and a World Cup.“That’s something they can see and say I want to be the next Helena Rowland or Emily Scarrett and that will become the norm.”It's not just the length of the win streak but how they have done it which has been impressive.They have swept through the Six Nations, winning their past 13 games with a points difference of +569.This has continued into the World Cup with heavy wins over Fiji (84-19) and South Africa (75-0).“I don’t think it took us until 25 wins to get (the significance),” Hunter admits when reflecting on the journey. “I think some of the challenges along the way and as you play in Six Nations and Autumn clashes, you start to win games and build momentum. You start to spend longer as a group and you build those connections and friendships.“For me, that’s when you realise something special is happening and it then becomes extra special when you get to moments like 25 wins in a row and it’s the most ever a Test team man or woman has won.“I think that reinforces just how special the team you are involved in is."It has been five years since the Wallaroos has tested itself against the benchmark English, with then-coach Paul Verrell taking the chance to debut 11 players as they went down 53-10.Just Liz Patu and Grace Hamilton remain from the 23, with England coach Middleton excited by the opportunity to face a fresh opponent.“England v Australia in a World Cup, it doesn’t get any better than that, does it?," he remarked after the win over South Africa. "We don’t get that many opportunities to play teams from the southern hemisphere for obvious reasons so we were sort of hoping we would play Australia – for no other reason than that. "There is great history between the sides and we haven’t been able to play them that often, I don’t think we have played them since 2017, so it’ll be great. "It’s a little bit of the unknown for us and we’ll have to do our homework on them. They are going really well and we know it’ll be ferociously tough so, yeah, we are really excited by it.” Click Here: Sergio Ramos Jersey Sale