With Lionesses manager Sarina Wiegman watching from the stands in Waitakere, England scored 13 tries in total with Rosie Galligan and Connie Powell both gaining hat-tricks.

Galligan would have had a fourth in the closing stages, but she wasn't able to ground the ball cleanly. Poppy Cleall and Sadia Kabeya also picked up braces as England led 29-0 at half-time.

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The only blot on England's copybook was a yellow card picked up by Sarah Bern on the brink of full-time. Bern went in for a high tackle and the Roses will wait and see if the citing officer reviews the incident.

The Red Roses have now won 28 consecutive Test matches. England's victory also means that Wales will move into quarter-finals as one of the two best third-placed teams in the pools.

England will take on Australia in the quarter-finals while Wales face-off against hosts New Zealand.

Canada and the USA will meet each other and France will take on Italy.

The quarter-finals start on Saturday, October 29 with two matches taking place in Whangarei and then the other matches will be played on the Sunday in Auckland.

Marlie Packer was selected to lead England for the first time as captain and she was delighted with the Roses' performance.

"I'm super happy," Packer said to ITV Sport. "We said it was going to take all 23 of us to get the job done and that's what happened. I'm just super proud to lead this team out and put a result on like we did.

"We've worked on things in training since the France game. There were a lot of [personnel] changes, a lot of first starts in a World Cup and we can take a lot from this game to build into the quarter-finals now.

"It was just a massive honour for the coaches to believe in me and to lead the team out. It was just amazing."

England finish the pool stage having scored 172 points and conceded just 26. Middleton's team racked up 28 tries during their three matches and against South Africa, his forward pack scored 12 of the 13.

Middleton: England got on top of nerves and opened up

England's head coach Simon Middleton was impressed with the way in which his starting XV and bench grew into the match.

"We got the basics of the game right eventually after a shaky and a very nervous start," Middleton said to ITV Sport.

"It was great to see the players settle down and just the way they got control of the game and got control of their nerves.

"Before the second half, we talked about just being a little more expressive and just playing in some of the spaces that we were given a little bit earlier. We did that and you can see they can play a little bit when we open up."

Two Roses miss South Africa match 'as a precaution'

Prop Vickii Cornborough and centre Emily Scarratt missed the match as they were withdrawn from the side ahead of kick-off.

Both players were assessed on Saturday and a statement from the RFU said the team felt it best they sit out of the game 'as a precaution'.

Harlequins' Shaunagh Brown came into the starting XV at tighthead prop, Maud Muir shifting to the bench as loosehead prop and Ellie Kildunne also took a place among the replacements.

Italy through to quarter-finals | USA and Canada set for rematch

Italy advanced to the quarter-finals for the first time with Melissa Bettoni's 78th-minute try sealing victory after Michela Sillari's two second-half penalties had given Di Giandomenico's side the lead.

The 21-8 victory over Japan sets up a quarter-final against fourth seeds France, who they beat in their final warm-up match for the tournament.

The USA and Canada completed their Pool B campaigns against each other, with Canada prevailing 29-14 on Sunday. The two local rivals will face off again in the quarter-finals.

In the final pool contest, early scores from Emily Tuttosi and Alex Tessier put Canada in control and, although Alev Kelter reduced the deficit, Paige Farries' try gave Kevin Rouet's team a 19-7 lead at half-time.

Olivia DeMerchant scored on the hour mark to earn the Canadians a bonus point and Mikiela Nelson dived over the line in the final seconds.

Wales watched all of the action unfold after they had completed their pool stage matches on Saturday with a 13-7 loss to Australia.

The team were then left waiting to see if other results would go their way to ensure they would take one of the best third-placed positions into the knockout stages.

Ioan Cunningham's team will take on hosts New Zealand in the quarter-finals and the head coach believes his side will "relish the opportunity" and take heart from some of their output against Australia.