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'We have ultimately got 39 players and that has to go to 32'

By PA
(Photo by Bob Bradford/CameraSport via Getty Images)

Head coach Simon Middleton says there are at least four or five calls to be made before his England Women’s World Cup squad is finalised on September 20. The Red Roses will head to New Zealand next month as tournament favourites as they are on a 23-game unbeaten run – New Zealand were the last team to beat them in 2019 – and are currently top of the world rankings by an emphatic margin.

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England face the USA in Exeter on Saturday before hosting Wales later this month. Their opening World Cup fixture is against Fiji in Auckland on October 8. “It is a little bit of a discovery game in terms of just some final choices,” said Middleton ahead of the Sandy Park encounter.

“We have been training for eight weeks, so we are absolutely desperate to play. The players have had a brilliant period of preparation since the start of July – the longest run-in we have had in pre-season – and have worked tirelessly to ensure we are in the best possible place.

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“Sometimes in sport, opportunities are limited, and with just the two matches before the tournament in New Zealand, this is one of those occasions. There are a few combinations we want to look at, there are some individual performances we want to look at and off the back of this, we are probably going to make some 50/50 calls on the (World Cup) squad.

We are close (to the final 32), but I would say there are at least four or five calls that we are going to have to make. We have ultimately got 39 players and that has to go to 32. I don’t think there is one single player in this squad who would assume they are going to be on the plane because that is not how they think.”

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Emily Scarratt captains England against the USA and she will be partnered in midfield by Gloucester-Hartpury’s Tatyana Heard, who makes her first international appearance since February 2019. Zoe Harrison takes the fly-half role, with new Exeter signing Claudia MacDonald featuring in the back-three following her recovery from a neck injury.

Middleton, meanwhile, delivered a positive fitness bulletin on wing Abby Dow, who suffered a broken leg during the England TikTok Six Nations victory over Wales in April. “Abby is ahead of where we hoped. Everything is on track,” added the coach.

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“She won’t play before the World Cup, but we knew that anyway. We have got a few things in place to make sure she is ready to go. She may well be available for the Fiji game, which is certainly what we are hoping for, and we are very optimistic at this point in time.”

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Flankly 2 minutes ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

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Nickers 11 minutes ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
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Nickers 41 minutes ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

I thought we made a lot of progress against that type of defence by the WC last year. Lots of direct running and punching holes rather than using width. Against that type of defence I think you have to be looking to kick on first phase when you have front foot ball which we did relatively successfully. We are playing a lot of rugby behind the gain line at the moment. They are looking for those little interchanges for soft shoulders and fast ball or off loads but it regularly turns into them battering away with slow ball and going backwards, then putting in a very rushed kick under huge pressure.


JB brought that dimension when he first moved into 12 a couple of years ago but he's definitely not been at his best this year. I don't know if it is because he is being asked to play a narrow role, or carrying a niggle or two, but he does not look confident to me. He had that clean break on the weekend and stood there like he was a prop who found himself in open space and didn't know what to do with the ball. He is still a good first phase ball carrier though, they use him a lot off the line out to set up fast clean ball, but I don't think anyone is particularly clear on what they are supposed to do at that point. He was used really successfully as a second playmaker last year but I don't think he's been at that role once this year. He is a triple threat player but playing a very 1 dimensional role at the moment. He and Reiko have been absolutely rock solid on defence which is why I don't think there will be too much experimentation or changes there.

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