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How John Mitchell is giving Red Roses a purpose in 2025
England head coach John Mitchell has put in place a plan to give all Red Roses clarity as players battle for a space in the home Rugby World Cup 2025 squad.
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Mitchell, who took over from Simon Middleton in 2023, described how his prior planning of announcing the teams for two fixtures at a time will help give each player in the England camp a purpose during the Six Nations and beyond.
“Our girls know exactly who’s playing next week. We’ve known all our roles for the first two weeks of the competition. We’re well planned, it reduces the anxiety, creates clarity,” he told the media in York following England’s opening Women’s Six Nations victory against Italy.
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“I like to plan, it would be stupid not to plan with what’s ahead in the year. For me, a lot of thought has gone into this, and we’ll be a better group for making sure that everyone has a purpose.
“Ultimately, we’ve had a great start, we brought pressure, we had some great examples of putting pressure on the opposition, and we’ve got some great examples of where we can take some punches and deal with it.
“We’ve got a squad that’s got it started, and we’ve got another group that’s going to be sitting back ready to go again next week. The Red Roses don’t sit still; they’ll keep pushing each other.
“From our point of view, we back the whole squad. We’re trying to give everyone a purpose in 2025. We want to create competion for places, there are no guarantees. We’re backing everyone and giving people the opportunities in their positions allows us to be able to build a connection and a cohesion that is going to hold us in good stead.”
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With competition for a spot on the team highly contested as a result of England’s strength and depth, Emma Sing, whose performance Mitchell described to be ‘outstanding’ in her first Test in 16 months, is one such player who is trying to stake her claim for a place.
The fullback, who has World Rugby Women’s XVs Player of the Year for 2024, Ellie Kildunne, to contend with as competition for the 15 shirt among others, said of Mitchell’s fortnightly squad announcements: “It’s massive. Getting the combinations, they can then build together for an extra week, and I think that will only help us get together as a team and the connections especially.”
Sing’s seventh Test cap saw her score a try against Italy, the same opposition she scored her first international try against in the 2022 Six Nations. The 24-year-old continued her form both with ball in hand and from the tee from Gloucester Hartpury’s three-peat winning 2024/25 season, with their history-making victory in the final happening only a week prior, where she also scored a try.
At the culmination of the PWR season, Sing was the top points scorer with 163 points.
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She said after the Six Nations win in York: “It’s about being yourself at the end of the day. One thing Mitch goes on about is being yourself. He wants what Gloucester get out of me, in an England shirt, so as long as I can adapt to that, I can try to play both styles of rugby well.
“You’ve got world-class players across the 37-man squad. To be able to get an opportunity is massive, and we’re only going to push each other to get better as well.”
John Mitchell was NZs coach at the mens RWC 2003. He oversaw our second worst result. I genuinely wish the Red Roses all the best but they need an English coach who understands your game, your players and your mentality. JM is not the person
for the job.
I initially felt like you, but I have changed somewhat as he has enough English back up staff and coaches to keep him grounded in our ways if necessary. On the the other hand perhaps we need someone who understands the NZ ways and takes the best to instill in the Red Roses game. NZ have been our closest rivals for many years and have largely come out on top when it matters - World Cup finals.
I don’t understand the focus on Sing. Her one attribute that is better than everyone else’s is her place kicking, though it is not infallible (PWR final) and both Harrison and Scarratt can be very good off the tee. In other respects, she defends OK but does not pose the attacking threat that Kildunne, Dow, Breach and MacDonald (plus Millie David) do and if she does break clear is quite slow in comparison. I think she will be fortunate to make the RWC squad. She is a good player who would make most other teams, but the Red Roses would be a lesser team if some others were left out at her expense.
Watching the last few rounds of the PWR, my feeling was that the opposition is a factor in selection. Kildunne does have weaknesses in her positioning for kicks, and was caught out of position on long kicks several times - there aren’t that many female kickers who can put up a long ball with a lot of accuracy, and I don’t think she’s used to facing them.
Sing is much more in the mould of a traditional fullback from the men’s game, both in terms of fielding kicks and sending them back, and I can see a role for her if England are facing a strong team with a powerful kicking game. She doesn’t offer the attacking threat that Kildunne does, but when you can also field Dow and Breach, you don’t necessarily need a running threat from all of your back three.
I’m not sure many agree with you on this one, Rugby Pass made her their player of the match last week and the comments on the BBC website, although mixed, were lauding her attributes. Her running lines are really good and incisive, very good passing range and her defence is better than ok. I do like her as an option and she would probably go to the RWC as a specialist FB and understudy. EK struggled against Canada at WXV because they doubled up on her every time and took away her space, why not give teams something different to defend?