McLean was at the heart of England’s impressive performance and scored the first try for her country to all but banish memories of last year’s 16-15 loss.

And the 24-year-old was delighted by the performance as much as the result.

“It was a big game after getting beat by Wales last year,” she said. “It was very pleasing to beat them to nil – to not concede is just as good as scoring five tries.

“I was in the dressing room after we got beat by Wales last year and it was not a great place to be. It was a shock and there was a lot of raw emotion. Fair play they were better than us on the day but we were missing some big players who were on Sevens duty.

“Having people like Heather Fisher and Maggie Alphonsi back in our ranks was big boost to us and overall it was a much better team performance. We played the game we wanted and did not get dragged into a battle.”

Despite England’s convincing win along with France’s shock loss to Scotland, McLean is adamant the only focus is on next week’s clash with Italy rather than a fourth Grand Slam in five years.

She said: “It is a really good building block for us to go into the rest of the Championship.

“We are not thinking about a Grand Slam or anything like that just yet – our only focus is going away to Italy and getting a result there.

“Ireland struggled for long periods against them so we know it is not going to be easy going over to their place.”