Katy Mclean to captain England in Women"s Rugby World Cup

The fly-half Katy Mclean will captain England in the Women’s Rugby World Cup which begins in France next month.

England, runners-up in the 2010 tournament, have named an experienced squad with five players taking part in their third World Cup.

“It’s going to be a huge 18 months,” Mclean said. “Let’s hope we get the right result in August and again in 2015.”

New Zealand beat England in the final in London four years ago – just as they did in 2002 and 2006 – with Mclean and her team eager to go one place better.

But the competition has improved in the intervening years and New Zealand, the Six Nations champions France, Canada, United States, Ireland, Australia and England all start the tournament with realistic designs on the trophy.

“For us 2010 took a long time to get over, because we were so close, but you do move on as well,” Mclean added. “The game has moved on so quickly. Our biggest test now is we’ve got to focus on our group. Samoa and Spain are going to be very different games.

“Our final game against Canada is going to be the main game for us. We could be in danger of looking too far ahead to the final and we don’t want to slip up on that hurdle.”

The flanker Margaret Alphonsi, centre Rachael Burford, lock Tamara Taylor, full-back Danielle Waterman and prop Rochelle Clark were all involved in the 2006 and 2010 tournaments and seven more played in 2010, while nine are set to make their World Cup debuts. Clark is the most-capped player in the group after being involved in 91 international matches.

The head coach Gary Street said: “This is a really exciting and strong squad going into a World Cup. We have a good balance of new, fresh players hungry for their first World Cup experience but also several more experienced heads.

“We now have a couple more weeks of camp time before we leave for France and we’ll use this time to look to raise the bar even higher and fine tune the details ready for kick off against Samoa.”

England’s campaign gets underway on 1 August against Samoa before they take on Spain on 5 August and Canada on 9 August. All the pool games will be played at Marcoussis in Paris and the semi-finals and final, on 13 and 17 August respectively, will be staged at Stade Jean Bouin.

England Women’s Rugby World Cup squad:

Backs C Allan (Richmond), Rl Burford (Thurrock), N Hunt (Lichfield), C Large (Worcester), L Mason (Wasps), K Mclean (capt, Darlington), K Merchant (Worcester), A Reed (Bristol), E Scarratt (Lichfield), L Thompson (Worcester), D Waterman (Bristol), K Wilson (Bristol). Forwards M Alphonsi (Saracens), R Clark (Worcester), E Croker (Richmond), R Essex (Richmond), H Fisher (Worcester), V Fleetwood (Lichfield), S Hemming (Bristol), S Hunter (Lichfield), L Keates (Worcester), A Matthews (Richmond), J McGilchrist (Wasps), M Packer (Wasps), C Purdy (Wasps), T Taylor (Darlington).

Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/27836155

Katy Mclean to captain England in Women"s Rugby World Cup