![]() Long-term captain and No.8 mainstay Sarah Hunter's leadership has been integral in bringing the group from one World Cup to the next. The new players have all come through and stepped up and we've added so much strength and depth." "I think there's a good blend, it's great. "We didn't realise how many players haven't participated in a previous World Cup," Bern says. Red Roses head coach Simon Middleton is eyeing Women's Rugby World Cup glory in New Zealand. And of the 32 on the plane, 19 will play in their first World Cup. Take scrum-half - England ended up going with Leanne Infante, Lucy Packer and Claudia MacDonald, leaving out the hugely experienced and admired Natasha 'Mo' Hunt who won the 2014 World Cup. The depth of the squad has also shifted over the past five years. "He says, 'do you want to be a dominating force, and something that's feared?' That's really been driven into us." "Deacs always says to us in the pack, 'what kind of pack do you want to be?'" Bern says. ![]() The coaching team of Middleton - who took charge in February 2015 - Scott Bemand and Louis Deacon have fine-tuned the squad ahead of this World Cup. We've also benefited from a really good player pathway and a lot of players coming through now have played divisional and county level so have played against each other and it's always been a really high level of competition." "It's high intensity, lots of rest and recovery and we don't train every single day," Bern says. #Pro player womens shorts pro#The introduction of pro contracts has meant the whole programme is far more nuanced now. Leading up to that last World Cup the players were training in a rigid 9 a.m.-5 p.m. "We can't leave anything to chance," Bern says. The chief mantra of the last five years has been minimising the unexpected. "We needed to reflect on what we didn't quite get right and how we could be in a better place the next time around." Bern has not yet brought herself to rewatch that final. "Since then we've had some new players come through, and it's all about focusing on how can we make sure we have the strength, the depth in the team to ensure we take our next chance," Bern says. She was there for the heartbreak of that World Cup final, and it still hurts. Bob Bradford - CameraSport via Getty Imagesīern, who has 46 caps, has been an integral part of the team which put together this 25-match winning run, but the starting motivation stems back from that defeat in 2017. ![]() We really work on that in training - we train ridiculously hard, it's not an easy ride." The Red Roses have won 25 matches in a row, most recently claiming a 73-7 win against Wales in September. We want to be perceived as being a really difficult team to face. We want to make sure there are no holes in the performance, no cracks. ![]() "That's something we kind of want to identify with," prop Sarah Bern tells ESPN. England never took their foot off the pedal. 14 night at Ashton Gate was so dominant Middleton did something unexpected: He took off Helena Rowland as a precaution with 10 minutes left, also giving the team a chance to play with 14 players. The record-clinching victory came just three weeks ago as they beat rivals Wales 73-7 to become the first international rugby side to win that many games on the bounce. Since that defeat to the Black Ferns, they have built this incredible dominance spanning 25 matches. So, in September 2019, the RFU responded by signing 28 full-time pro player contracts - the announcement coming just two months after their last defeat, as they fell to New Zealand in San Diego. The Sevens team and the 15s had too much overlap - lines were blurred, and players were burnt out as they juggled both formats. "Everybody's got a chance in sport, that's the beauty of sport." It's the beauty, but it's also the pitfall awaiting England over the next few weeks.Īfter having lost the 2017 World Cup final to New Zealand 41-32, the RFU and the various stakeholders knew the current format and plan was not clicking. knocking Anthony Joshua out when he hasn't got a chance," Middleton added. "You look at Argentina beating New Zealand in New Zealand for the first time, you look at Andy Ruiz Jr. Middleton's Red Roses want to be on the right side of sporting destiny, as for every tale of a team heading into a World Cup - in any sport - as clear favourites and delivering, there is the other side of the coin where they fall short. ![]()
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