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WXV: 'The last 20 minutes showed the class that we have on the pitch'
I’m super happy that we came away with the WXV 1 title. It’s something that we’ve been working on for the last 12 weeks and it has been a really long pre-season going into the tournament.
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We knew that coming into this, it is the best of the best at the end of the day. You can’t take a backwards step. For us in the final match, we probably didn’t execute our lineout as well as we wanted to, but at the same time credit to Canada and how well they did their homework and marked us out of the game in that sense.
I think it was also vice versa, we put a lot of pressure on them. You could tell it was the best of the best going head-to-head in that lineout. At scrum time, we have to massively give praise to our super eight, who are our subs coming off the bench, who finished off the scrums. That for us meant that we were in control for the last 20 minutes and that was important for us.
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That’s something that we probably do have on Canada, is we know how to finish a game. We definitely did that, it was tight and tense at times but the last 20 minutes showed the class that we have on the pitch that we can control and finish a game.
It’s been a really good tour with a great balance between memories on the field and off the field. Highlights for me have to be going up and seeing grizzly bears at Grouse Mountain and doing a seaplane and seeing the whole of Vancouver from a different perspective. On the pitch, little moments where we’ve all bought into training.
There have been some really soggy, wet days where you’ve been sliding and scoring tries with a 10-metre slide at the end of it, and battering each other, but everyone coming away really positive. It’s been a fantastic tour and something that we’ll remember for a long time.
There’s a lot to work on, that match against Canada was probably the biggest battle that we’ve had so far, but we know that we’re still a team that’s growing and we’re really excited for a big year ahead.
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For RWC 2021 and last year’s WXV, we did two years in New Zealand on the bounce, so we were really excited to come out to Vancouver and Canada this time around. We know that we’ve got a lot of home games this year, so we don’t take being able to travel teh world for granted.
Knowing that we can now go back to England and travel England a bit, and showcase how good women’s rugby is and try and grow it in different regions, that for us is going be a massive challenge and we want to make sure we inspire the next generation.
We had a debrief in the changing room after the last match. We’d been together for over 60 days and that’s a lot of time to spend in each other’s pockets as Mitch [John Mitchell] would say! For us, that first pre-season game against France, we knew that we had to keep building from there.
I definitely think we showed that in the final WXV 1 match against Canada. There were a lot of tears after the game, happy tears, but also just complete exhaustion. Tour is hard, but we’re all so happy that we came away with the win and we could go home and have a week off before hitting the PWR running.
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I’m excited to get back to Saracens. They knew that they had to start the PWR without a lot of their internationals but they’ve done really well getting two from two. Sale away is always a tough game, you can go up there and get a bit complacent, and also with the travel, it takes it out of you a little bit.
The girls came away with a phenomenal result and we’re [international players] all really excited to get back there. It was also nice meeting the likes of Fancy Bermudez, and also a few of the other Canadians who have been at the club before, just making sure that they felt welcome and that we’re excited to have them there.
We have a week off after WXV, to make sure that we’ve recovered, but it is a really short and condensed season so it’s about making sure that clubs manage everyone right. Making sure that we leave everything out there and get the balance right, but at the same time, there is a big year ahead of us.
We want to make sure that everyone is in the best place heading into a World Cup, and hopefully, us coming away with the RWC title.
This evening, we’ll find out who’s in our pool for Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025. You can watch the draw live on The One Show on BBC from 19:00 or on RugbyPass TV, from around 19:20 GMT + 1 – don’t miss it!
