Six Nations – Italy v England
Here is the new coach’s first team selection:
15 Ellie Kildunne 14 Abby Dow 13 Helena Rowland 12 Emily Scarratt 11 Jess Breach 10 Zoe Harrison 9 Lucy Packer 1 Hannah Botterman 2 Lark Atkin-Davies 3 Kelsey Clifford 4 Zoe Aldcroft 5 Abbie Ward 6 Sadia Kabeya 7 Marlie Packer 8 Sarah Beckett
16 Connie Powell 17 Mackenzie Carson 18 Maud Muir 19 Kelsey Clifford 20 *Maddie Feaunati Alex Matthews 21 Mo Hunt 22 Holly Aitchison 23 Megan Jones
*uncapped
He couldn’t help surprising us. People who would grace any team in the world had to be omitted from the starting line-up. In a sense we can call this mixing-and-matching. Among the more surprising starters (to my mind, Kelsey Clifford, Lucy Packer and Sarah Beckett), few can be sure of appearing again next week. Hence Mitchell’s policy of letting the squad know of his present and future selection plans.
There are very welcome returns for Scaz, Zoe Harrison and Abbie Ward, who may one day hope to be better known by her own name, rather than as the mother of Hallie. Neither Lucy Packer nor Sadia Kabeya were available for WXV, so they too are welcome returns. Ward and Aldcroft in the second row are two world stars in tandem.
And above all, Mitchell has managed to find room for the wonderful Marlie Packer. Over the past decade England has gloried in a whole series of centurions. We should never forget the huge achievement this represents. Rather like one of her recent predecessors, Katy Daley-Mclean, it may fairly be claimed Marlie is a better player now than she ever was in the past.
Once again you can sense the strength of the 23 by looking at the bench. No visible weakening there.
The Outlook
By any measure this ought to be an away banker; the Azzurre have yet to lower English colours. They have given them nasty shocks – one person on the staff might remind her troops of the unsettling 7-7 half-time score in another away match six years ago (players like Dow and Kildunne will remember it well), but the disparities in quality are all too plain to see.
John Mitchell can rarely have had such an easy run-in to a new coaching appointment. His biggest problem was to know who to choose for his first 6N outing. Hardly a stiff test for an ex-All Blacks coach.
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