England rally round their coach

“Helen is an incredible woman,” he said. “She’s had arthritis for seven years

and it has affected her life badly. She has our two boys to look after but

she’s an amazing woman and I don’t know how she does it. She is in constant

pain but she gets on with life.”

Street’s wife will be a spectator in Paris on Sunday when England hope to make

amends for missing out on home soil four years ago, their third consecutive

final defeat by New Zealand.

“Losing in the last World Cup final has been the sole motivation for the last

four years,” Street said. “This is what we all came back to do. I remember

sitting in our first meeting back after the final.

“We had the band back together and I said to them: ‘Why have you all come

back? Why didn’t you hang your boots up and all go home after that

disappointment?’

“They said they wanted to come back because they wanted to win next time. They

said they wanted to do themselves justice. They wanted to get back to

another final to see if they could win it next time. It’s not a fear factor,

it’s what has driven us to get where we are. It has been four years of hard

work to get here.”

Although Street and his assistant Graham Smith, a former Scotland A and

Moseley prop, are employed full time, England’s players are not and all of

them have made considerable personal sacrifices to combine international

rugby with careers outside sport.

As the opportunities for squad training sessions are limited, Street and Smith

spend many hours driving up and down the country for individual and group

coaching, often in the most unlikely places.

“I can remember coaching Katy Mclean once on a bit of grass in the middle of a

racecourse near Newcastle,” Street said. “I spend a lot of time in the car

driving from Twickenham up to Newcastle to see Katy and down to Devon to

work with the South West girls. There is a lot of travel but the girls make

an incredible commitment to play for England.”

Street, who played as a combative scrum-half for Aston Old Edwardians in

Birmingham and county rugby for Greater Birmingham and North Midlands, began

coaching women’s rugby with Birmingham University in 1993.

He was recruited by the Rugby Football Union to run a pilot academy in Bath

which laid the foundations for England’s success at international level and

he enjoys the challenge of coaching women, who he believes are more

inquisitive than their male counterparts.

“The biggest difference between the men’s and women’s games from a coaching

perspective is that the women do question you more,” Street said. “They are

genuinely interested, they want to know the game and to understand their

roles.

“When you do a session you really have to be right on it. You really need to

know what you are talking about. You can’t say: ‘We are doing this because I

say so.’ The girls want to know how it is going to make a difference.

“In terms of physicality, pound for pound, there is not much difference. The

biggest difference over the last couple of years is in goal-kicking. The

standard of goal-kicking in the World Cup has been outstanding, you’ve got

Emily Scarratt banging them over from the touchline.”

England rally round their coach