2. Decisions, Decisions – Tough Choices for Mitchell at Lock, Scrum Half & Fly Half
With the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup set to commence in 12 months time, Mitchell needs to use the next calendar year wisely. The head coach confirmed that he is going to whittle down his squad prior to their WXV campaign, with the goal of locking in a solid match day squad, that can then gain reps as his first choice playing group. However, the New Zealander has been presented with some tough choices, on who he will select on the run up to next Summer.
“I reckon the lock area is probably the toughest. We’ve got to decide whether we want to contest people’s, win our own ball or contest opposition’s ball, which we have the ability to do both. That’s probably the toughest, because there’s some world-class locks in that group. In the nines, we’ve got a very experienced Mo (Hunt), who can control a game. We’ve got Lucy (Packer), who’s becoming a better runner and is a beautiful passer, trying to develop her running game.
“She has the ability over time to game manage well. And you’ve got Ella (Wywras), who’s more the free spirit running scrum half. Her biggest area is managing the game, which she doesn’t get a lot of time to do, so she’s on a quick-living curve. Three of those halfbacks can play in different ways.
“And then in the 10s, you’ve got Holly (Aitchison), Helena (Rowland), and then you’ve got Zoe (Harrison). And they’re all different as well. Holly and Helena are both attacking fly halves, so as you can see, I very much like an attacking fly half.
“Zoe’s got an extremely long kicking game, which served the team in the last cycle very, very well. So she’s getting challenged in terms of actually having to attack. So yeah, very fortunate, but we’re going to need each other, because we need connection, and we don’t know who the nines and 10s are going to be.”
3. Not settling Women’s Six Nations and WXV titles – Pressure is on for 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup glory
The Red Roses have long been the dominant force within the Women’s Six Nations, having won the competition for the past six consecutive years. England added the inaugural WXV1 title to their ever-expanding trophy cabinet last season, yet the Women’s Rugby World Cup continues to elude them.
England last lifted the pinnacle piece of silverware in 2014, and have since finished runners-up in 2017 and 2022 to the back-to-back world champions New Zealand. Mitchell recognises how the pressure will be on for his side to deliver next year, with the caveat of a home-soil World Cup hoping to play into his team’s favour.
JOHN MITCHELL: How do we get done what we haven’t got done for 11 years? So yes we’ve done well in Six Nations, yes we’ve done well in WXV, and maybe we could just sit on our laurels and continue with the way that we approach things, but how can we just squeeze a little bit more out of each other?
How can we squeeze a little bit more out in terms of the way that our environment works and how we communicate with each other with problems rather than just focusing on goodness? And then how do we continue to evolve our game?
“There’s definitely a process around how do we get done what we haven’t got done for 11 years? We’re mindful of that, but also that’s performance related, but there’s also a higher purpose as well which we’re playing around with at the moment because we think we have a greater responsibility than just winning. We’ve been wrestling with that for a year, it’s becoming clearer, so we think that’s really, really important to us when we’re especially having a home World Cup.”