England gave coach Gary Street an early birthday present with a 32-3 victory over Canada at the Twickenham Stoop on Wednesday, a confidence-boosting win against their Pool A opponents at Women’s Rugby World Cup 2014.

The Red Roses had already lost twice to Canada during the Women’s Nations Cup in August, but followed up their 40-20 victory over WRWC 2014 hosts France at Twickenham last weekend with a three-try win on a cold evening in west London.

The first half was an error-strewn affair with penalties and dropped passes making it too stop-start for either team to build much momentum, but England went in leading 21-3 after tries from prop Sophie Hemming and wing Lydia Thompson touching down.

England came racing out of the blocks after the break with good work from the forwards pushing the Canadians backwards, giving Hemming the space to touch down in an almost carbon-copy of her first try.

Captain Katy McLean contributed 17 points with the boot as England moved to 32-3 with 15 minutes remaining and, despite a late onslaught from their visitors, the hosts held on to finish what has been a disappointing year with Six Nations and Nations Cup titles relinquished on a high.

“We’ve still got some good players to come back so to go out there and perform like that is really pleasing,” admitted Street. “We’ve got a tough group out in France for the World Cup but our focus before that is the Six Nations – we’re just delighted to get back to winning ways.

“We’re still making errors, but we made 11 changes from Saturday and that goes to show the strength in depth that we’ve got.

“Our aim for the autumn was to show everyone that we’re back in business after a difficult 12 months, so to score 72 points in our two games is fantastic – a nice early birthday present for me, with my birthday tomorrow!”

Canada return home with a record of played three, won one and lost two after sharing a series with France before travelling to England. France won the first of those Test 27-9 but Canada fought back to snatch the second 11-6 with the final play of the match.

While England now turn their attentions to trying to regain the Six Nations crown from 2013 Grand Slam winners Ireland, Canada will continue preparations for the World Cup before travelling to face New Zealand and Australia next year.