England's Six Nations squad proves there has never been more strength in women's game

[ASFN Admin]

England’s hopes of securing a third consecutive Six Nations grand slam have been handed a significant boost by the return of their talismanic captain Sarah Hunter, who will lead a dynamic 38-strong squad for the tournament. Simon Middleton’s squad is bigger than those of all the other home nations for this year’s tournament, which stands testament to the ever-growing player pool in the Premier 15s that the England head coach has at his disposal. Six uncapped ‘development’ players from the country's top domestic flight have been included and are available for selection, including Wasps’ versatile prop Maud Muir and Exeter Chiefs duo Flo Robinson and Merryn Doidge. “I look across that squad - and even given the development players who have been with us the past four, five weeks - there’s nobody I wouldn’t put into a Six Nations game if I felt I had to,” said Middleton. “Nobody there is out of their depth and that’s because they’re playing week in, week out in the Premier 15s, which is a really high standard of competition now. The depth of players now across the competition is fantastic.” As the only professional side in the Six Nations, England are favourites heading into this year’s truncated championship, which will take on a round-robin format requiring less international travel due to the pandemic. The reigning champions open their campaign against Scotland at Doncaster’s Castle Park on April 3, which will be their first international since Katy Daley-Mclean’s retirement last year after more than a decade in the role. Saracens’ Zoe Harrison looks favourite to be England’s first-choice fly-half, having been Daley-Mclean’s understudy in recent years, although Wasps’ Meg Jones and Loughborough Lightning’s Helena Rowland - who are both involved with the GB Sevens squad - are also in contention. With an extra year of preparation in light of the women’s World Cup being pushed back until 2022, Middleton intends to use the tournament as an opportunity to trial new half-back combinations. “Replacing Katy takes a bit of doing,” he said. “Zoe has been playing fairly regularly for us in the 10-stroke-12 slot, Helena’s obviously been in the Sevens programme. To now have an extra 12 months to prepare those two and others that may surface makes a massive difference for us.” The return of several experienced England forwards who missed last year’s autumn friendlies - including Loughborough’s Cath O’Donnell who is set to make her first Test appearance since 2019 - is also timely. Covid-enforced adapted laws in the Premier 15s have limited the number of scrums this season, a situation which Middleton labelled as “challenging”. “We weren’t able to do a lot of contact work and certainly very little scrummaging work for the first six weeks of the year,” he said. “There’s no substitute for scrummaging live, so I think there will be a little bit of unpredictability about it, but the whole world is about adapting and that’s how it will look in the field when it comes to the set-piece and scrummaging.” Despite targeting their third consecutive grand slam - a feat which England last achieved from 2010 to 2012 - the women's side will not feature at Twickenham, where the pitch has begun to be relayed this week. Middleton said he did not feel “short-changed” by the unfortunate timing, adding that the women have spent the past week training at the main stadium. “It would be great to play there but there’s work planned there,” said Middleton. “With crowds, the venues may have been different. But if you can’t have crowds there’s no point in going into massive stadiums. We understand the situation and we just want to play.” On the tournament breaking new ground - with every game available to watch on BBC iPlayer and with England’s grand-finale match on BBC2 - he added: “It’s massive for us. To have the BBC on board and going mainstream for the third game is fantastic for us.” England women 2021 Six Nations squad FORWARDS Zoe Aldcroft (Gloucester-Hartpury, 20 caps) Sarah Beckett (Harlequins Women, 20 caps) Hannah Botterman (Saracens Women, 20 caps) Shaunagh Brown (Harlequins Women, 20 caps) Bryony Cleall (Saracens Women, 1 cap) Poppy Cleall (Saracens Women, 43 caps) Amy Cokayne (Harlequins Women, 53 caps) Vickii Cornborough (Harlequins Women, 56 caps) Lark Davies (Loughborough Lightning, 28 caps) Vicky Fleetwood (Saracens Women, 76 caps) Detysha Harper (Loughborough Lightning, 3 caps) Sarah Hunter (C; Loughborough Lightning 123 caps) Flo Long (Worcester Warriors Women, 0 caps)* Alex Matthews (Worcester Warriors Women, 40 caps) Harriet Millar-Mills (Wasps FC Ladies, 58 caps) Maud Muir (Wasps FC Ladies, 0 caps)* Cath O’Donnell (Loughborough Lightning, 16 caps) Marlie Packer (Saracens Women, 74 caps) Ellena Perry (Gloucester-Hartpury, 10 caps) Emily Robinson (Harlequins Women, 0 caps) Abbie Ward (Harlequins Women, 45 caps) --- BACKS Jess Breach (Harlequins Women, 15 caps) Merryn Doidge (Exeter Chiefs Women, 0 caps)* Abby Dow (Wasps FC Ladies, 15 caps) Ellie Green (Harlequins Women, 0 caps)* Zoe Harrison (Saracens Women, 27 caps) Megan Jones (Wasps FC Ladies, 10 caps) Ellie Kildunne (Wasps FC Ladies, 11 caps) Claudia MacDonald (Wasps FC Ladies, 12 caps) Sarah McKenna (Saracens Women, 32 caps) Amber Reed (Bristol Bears Women, 58 caps) Leanne Riley (Harlequins Women, 40 caps) Flo Robinson (Exeter Chiefs, 0 caps)* Helena Rowland (Loughborough Lightning, 3 caps) Emily Scarratt (Loughborough Lighting, 92 caps) Lydia Thompson (Worcester Warriors, 46 caps) Lagi Tuima (Harlequins Women, 6 caps) Beth Wilcock (Harlequins Women, 0 caps)* *development players

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