Wales captain Siwan Lillicrap has asked for patience to be shown to a young team after England handed out a 10-try thrashing at Twickenham Stoop.
The 66-7 scoreline underlined what been a sobering Six Nations campaign for Wales who have lost all four games so far and have a points difference of minus 132.
Since head coach Rowland Phillips took a still to be explained “break” from his duties, Wales have lost to Italy, Ireland, France and England and their final shot at redemption – at home to Scotland – seems unlikely to go ahead because of a positive coronavirus test inside the Scottish squad.
Lillicrap said: “We have got to look at the positives of what we displayed. England are an outstanding side and they showed that, but there was definitely some really good stuff from us as well. England away is always a tough task. We did pressure them at times.
“We’re at the beginning of a building stage, we’ve got lots of youngsters in the squad, and we’ve got to stick with it, keep developing, and keep learning.
“We want to play the best sides in the world and we’ll learn more from that than anything else.”
An alarming gulf is now opening up between England’s fully professionalised side and their Six Nations opponents – including Wales – which should be a concern for the tournament.
Wales’ second-half penalty try was some consolation but such has been England’s superiority that it was the only score they have conceded in one-sided games against Scotland, Ireland and Wales.
Chris Horsman’s side were undone by a stunning hat-trick from Red Roses second row Poppy Cleall as her team scored a total of 10 tries to stay on course for a Grand Slam.
Cleall’s treble aside England’s best try came from a superb effort by fly-half Katy Daley-McLean as Wales got on the scoreboard in the second half.
Amy Cokayne crossed on her 50th cap and Vicky Fleetwood, Harriet Millar-Mills, Zoe Aldcroft, Hannah Botterman and Sarah McKenna also touched down for England.
The crowd of 10,974 was a record for an England women ticketed home game outside of a World Cup, surpassing the previous mark of 10,545 set at Exeter’s Sandy Park in the 2019 Six Nations.
England captain Emily Scarratt: “It’s awesome playing here in front of this many people. We love playing in front of crowds like this.
“It’s the last game of the Six Nations for us at the moment, so we wanted to put on a show, and rectify a few things we were frustrated with after the Ireland game.
“We set ourselves really high standards, and when you fall short of those it’s frustrating. We got back on the horse as it were, and the scoreboard probably speaks for itself. There were some fantastic tries right across the board.”
