England head coach John Mitchell will seek clarification from World Rugby after criticising Scotland's "cynical" tactics in Sunday's 40-8 World Cup quarter-final victory.
The Red Roses set-up a semi-final against France next Saturday after their pack took charge at a rain-swept Ashton Gate, with four of their six tries supplied by forwards.
But Mitchell insisted the win would have been even more emphatic had Scotland not undermined their set-piece through methods he claimed were illegal, declaring "the game deserves better than that".
"We dominated territory and built pressure on them. We found weakness and cynical actions in their set-piece and we went for the jugular there. We probably left a little bit out there as well," Mitchell said.
"We need to talk to World Rugby about understanding when teams are so cynical why don’t we get awarded penalty tries sometimes. That’s something that I’ll go through the right channels for.
"There was double sacking in the line-out when there should be single sacking. And there were repeated infringements at scrum time.
"The whole second half slowed down at scrum time. The game deserves better than that. Look how dominant we were at scrum time, our maul and scrum were superior and we should be rewarded for that."
France edged into the semi-finals with an 18-13 victory over Ireland at Sandy Park and England will be confident of extending their dominance over their Six Nations rivals.
"We respect them hugely. They got themselves out of a very difficult situation today (Sunday) and in very difficult conditions. They’ll be energetic for us," Mitchell said.
England expect to have a clean bill of health for Thursday’s team announcement with Ellie Kildunne (concussion) and Hannah Botterman (back) on course to be available for selection.
Scotland achieved their primary objective of reaching the quarter-finals, but head coach Bryan Easson was disappointed they failed to give the best account of themselves in Bristol.
FT: ENG 40-8
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) September 14, 2025
Holly Aitchison with England's sixth and final try as the hosts march into the Women's World Cup semi-finals, beating Scotland by 32 points.
📺https://t.co/8XIEOHjQi5 pic.twitter.com/B89MzC6NWy
"This is a special group of women. We’re hugely disappointed about today. We did want to cause an upset and that’s something we believe we had in the group," Easson said.
"This should not be the end of something, it should be the start of something. This World Cup has moved the women’s game forward and we have to make sure we keep up at the same speed."
Captain Rachel Malcolm admitted that the Red Roses’ dominance upfront suffocated Scotland out of contention.
"England are the number one team in the world for a reason and their pack is a huge part of that," Malcolm said.
"It was hard to find the answers to the questions they were posing us. We thrive on the set-piece, but we didn’t have it against them and without that it makes it extremely hard to win a game."
Watch New Zealand v Canada in the Women's Rugby World Cup semi-finals on Friday from 6.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player
