England Women’s Head Coach Gary Street has named his side to take on
the reigning world champions, New Zealand, on Saturday at Twickenham
Stadium, kick off 5pm.
Street has included 12 survivors from the 2010 Rugby World Cup in his
starting line-up with a further two world cup players on the bench. England
last played the Black Ferns in the final of that tournament with New Zealand
taking a narrow 13-10 victory.
Darlington Mowden Park Sharks fly-half Katy McLean will captain England
with Margaret Alphonsi as vice-captain. In the pack Vicky Fleetwood, who has
five caps, starts at hooker with the experienced Rochelle Clark and Sophie
Hemming making up the front row. Tamara Taylor, Rowena Burnfield, Rebecca
Essex, Alphonsi and Sarah Hunter, who most recently captained England in a
two-test series against France, make up an experienced England pack. Over
250 caps is shared between England’s backs, which sees the likes of
McLean and Danielle Waterman return to the starting line-up so England can
also boast a tried and tested backs unit.
Street, whose side are sharing Saturday’s Twickenham billing with the
all-star line-up of the Barbarians and Australia, kick off 230pm, said:
“I have picked a really experienced side with this being our strongest
available 22 at the moment. We have also got some younger faces in this team
too but by going to France earlier this month that exposed them to some big
pressure games. It was a testing week for them but their ability to perform
in those conditions shows why they deserve to be in this squad.
“On Saturday I think the key battle will be at the breakdown and it
will also be important for us to control the ball but also the tempo of the
game. We’ve had a week in camp leading up to this game and that has
been invaluable preparation. We have been able to work on various aspects of
our game and to iron out any issues from this season’s programme.
“Certainly over the past 12 months we have made a conscious effort to
improve all areas of our game, especially game understanding. We have
learned lessons from the 2010 world cup final, where we didn’t play
that well, and I am certainly expecting us to be a much stronger side this
time around.”
Since the world cup final England have gone on to dominate the Six Nations
Championship, with a sixth consecutive title and Grand Slam, whilst also
taking the top honours at the Nations Cup. New Zealand, however, have not
played an international test match since that game, though for Street he is
by no means underestimating this Black Ferns side.
He added: “New Zealand may not have played an international test
match for 14 months, but that is exactly where they were at before the world
cup so you can always rely on them to pull out the performance when it
matters. For most teams not playing regular international rugby would affect
them but for New Zealand it never seems to matters.”
Saturday’s game marks the first of three test matches between England
and New Zealand this autumn. The two sides will also clash on November 29th
and December 3rd at Esher RFC.
England
15 Danielle Waterman (Worcester)
14 KatherineMerchant (Worcester)
13 Emily
Scarratt (Lichfield)
12 KimberleyOliver (Bristol)
11 Michaela Staniford
(Wasps)
10 Katy
McLean (Darlington
Mowden Park Sharks) (C)
9 La Toya
Mason
(Wasps)
1 Rochelle Clark (Worcester)
2 Victoria
Fleetwood (Lichfield)
3 Sophie
Hemming (Bristol)
4 Rowena
Burnfield (Richmond)
5 Tamara Taylor(Darlington Mowden Park
Sharks)
6 Rebecca Essex(Richmond)
7 Margaret
Alphonsi (Saracens) (VC)
8 Sarah
Hunter
(Lichfield)
Replacements:
16 Amy
Turner
(Richmond)
17 Laura
Keates
(Worcester)
18 Marlie
Packer
(Bristol)
19 Alexandra
Matthews (Richmond)
20 Natasha Hunt (Lichfield)
21 Rachael
Burford
(Richmond)
22 Kay
Wilson
(Richmond)
England Autumn International Series
Nov 26th England v New Zealand, Twickenham Stadium, KO 5pm, live on Sky
Sports HD 1 Red Button
Nov 29th England v New Zealand, Esher RFC, KO 7pm, live on
www.rfu.com/englandwomenlive
Dec 3rd England v New Zealand, Esher RFC, 2pm, live on
www.rfu.com/englandwomenlive
Tickets for the game at Twickenham on November 26th are available from
Ticketmaster.co.uk and group booking are available from the RFU by calling
0871 22 22 017, option 6. Prices range from £65 to £35. Junior
tickets cost just £15.
Tickets for the international tests at Esher RFC on November 29th and
December 3rd will be available on the gate and cost £10 for adults and
£5 for juniors. They can also be purchased in advance at
www.esherrugby.com
