John Mitchell reveals two Red Roses who could offer scrum-half cover at World Cup
Red Roses head coach John Mitchell has revealed that England are looking at wings Claudia MacDonald and Mia Venner as possible options as scrum half cover ahead of naming their squad for the Rugby World Cup on home soil later this year.
Mitchell has begun the process of whittling down his wider squad to the 32 names permitted to be named in his group for the tournament, with England's selection set to be confirmed on 24 July. The veteran coach intends to take a split of 18 forwards and 14 backs to the World Cup, leaving positional versatility required in several areas of his squad.
Advertisement
Predecessor Simon Middleton took only two specialist scrum halves to the last World Cup in New Zealand, with veteran Natasha 'Mo' Hunt a surprise omission with MacDonald covering as the third nine despite operating largely on the wing during the tournament.
Injury then struck first-choice scrum half Leanne Infante on the day of the final, leaving the relatively untested Lucy Packer to start at short notice with MacDonald playing half-an-hour off the bench.
While the pair produced good performances, Middleton faced criticism for his selection gamble at the time and in retrospect, and Hunt has since returned to seize the starting shirt with Packer now her back-up.
Scrum halves Ella Wyrwas and Flo Robinson are both part of the Red Roses training squad but Mitchell has confirmed that he is looking at the options that forgoing a third specialist nine might present.
Advertisement
'I've already said that I'm planning on taking an 18-14 split,' Mitchell reiterated. 'That helps us prepare, especially in our units. And that just means that some girls will have versatile roles.
Claudia MacDonald may provide scrum half cover (PA)
'It'll be hard on some players in the sense that some specialists might miss out as a result of the versatility that's needed in an 18-14 split. Claudia MacDonald is definitely being looked at as a scrum half option. Mia [Venner] also presents that as well. Mia also presents the versatility as a full-back. The outside backs, you've got to fit six girls into five, so that's going to be a challenging selection, but a good one.'
Venner operated at scrum half earlier in her career and filled in impressively while Hunt was in the sin bin during Gloucester Hartpury's Premiership Women's Rugby final win earlier this year. MacDonald, meawhile, has battled back from a career-threatening neck injury to push for a starting place on the wing.
Advertisement
Throughout his tenure, Mitchell has made an effort to keep players fully informed of their place in the make-up of the squad and likely roles, something he intends to continue ahead of the World Cup.
Hunt's omission came as a surprise ahead of the last tournament, with her exclusion reported in the press ahead of the announcement with a delay between Middleton telling his players and the squad being officially revealed.
Natasha Hunt (left) is one of a quartet of Red Roses hoping to win a second World Cup (Getty)
Mitchell is unconcerned about the prospect of a possible repeat of that scenario, with most players informed of his plans for them after a warm weather training camp in Treviso from 7 July to 12 July. 'I'm not really worried about anything leaking or when it is. I think that we've been pretty consistent. If you look at the group that's come in, the wider group that's part of the group, they know what's expected of them.
Advertisement
'They also are aware of the intentions and the purpose of why they're doing things. Eventually, as we get down the track, everyone will know our pool plans as well. So we work on the people that are probably on the fringes first. That's very clear to them what's expected of them. They just need to be ready because if they get that phone call from me, it could be in a World Cup or a match, it could be in a World Cup quarter-final.'
Centre Emily Scarratt is hoping to make a fifth World Cup, with flanker Marlie Packer also pushing for selection despite losing the captaincy at the start of this year.
England take on Spain and France in two warm-up games ahead of the tournaments, which will both be capped internationals. A renewed list of Red Roses contracts is expected to be confirmed imminently ahead of the tournament.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
41 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Real Madrid dealt fresh injury blow
La Liga giants Real Madrid have late this week been dealt a fresh blow on the personnel front. This comes amid confirmation that defensive star David Alaba has suffered a setback in his ongoing efforts to recover from injury. Advertisement Stopper Alaba has for his part been sidelined since back in April, after his long-awaited return from an ACL injury was followed first by an adductor problem, and then a meniscus issue in his left knee. The Austrian had spent recent weeks closing on a return to the pitch, with a view to making himself available for pre-season training. As alluded to above, however, this weekend, such hopes on Alaba's part have been dashed. This comes amid confirmation on the part of the reliable Arancha Rodríguez of COPE that the former Bayern Munich man has picked up yet another injury: 'Alaba will be sidelined for another month due to a muscle injury in the soleus of the left leg.' Conor Laird – GSFN
Yahoo
41 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Wimbledon storylines: Sabalenka and Gauff, Sinner and Alcaraz and no more line judges
Is Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff's olive branch a sign of things on court? Is Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner's dominance of men's tennis about to go up another level? Is the disappearance of line judges going to cause more problems than solutions? Advertisement And will the biggest battle at Wimbledon this fortnight be not on the court, but in it? Wimbledon 2025 promises to be a cracker. Here, 's tennis writers, Matt Futterman and Charlie Eccleshare, chart some of the key storylines to follow over the next fortnight. Where does Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff's rivalry go from here? Sabalenka is having an outrageous season. She is constantly making finals. She has won tournaments in Brisbane, Miami and Madrid. She is more than 2,000 points ahead of world No. 2 Gauff in the WTA rankings race that counts points won this season. But it also hurts her that she doesn't have the three titles she wanted to win more than all the others: the Australian Open, the French Open and Indian Wells. (And Stuttgart. The one that comes with the Porsche. She really wanted to win the Porsche. And the lost the final there. Again.) Advertisement Sabalenka isn't great at losing, just like most champions. She finds it so crushing to lose these matches that while it's happening, while the world is watching, she's visibly miserable. She's yelling at herself. She's yelling at her box. Every champion who loses feels this way, and only some let it out. It makes Sabalenka one of the most compelling players on the tour, because fans — and her rivals' fans — live every moment with her like it's their career on the line. After losing to Gauff at Roland Garros, Sabalenka spoke, first on court and then in her news conference, about how horribly she played. She barely gave any credit to Gauff until after the event. Then she apologized for what she called her 'unprofessional' comments, then they came to Wimbledon and made a TikTok or two. Gauff said they were good, so the rest of the world should be too. Then Wimbledon posted that on their own social media, which came off more strangely. Should a tournament be casting its top seeds as best friends? Does the tennis world not want more rivalries? The grass suits Sabalenka. She's the favorite, hands down. She has the power for it, the serve and the movement, as well as her ever-evolving variety and touch and feel. She's only won Grand Slams on hard courts, and Wimbledon is the Grand Slam that completes a career, so the pressure is there, but she might be far enough ahead of her rivals not too matter. Gauff's forehand grip makes it very difficult for her to win on such a low-bouncing surface. Madison Keys, who beat Sabalenka in Australia, could trouble her. Markéta Vondroušová, a potential third-round opponent, beat Sabalenka in Berlin and has won Wimbledon before. The 2022, champion Elena Rybakina cannot be discounted. Iga Świątek, who uses a similar forehand grip to Gauff, has been making the Bad Homburg grass in Germany her living room this week. Advertisement And if Sabalenka does make the final, it's more likely than not that said final will be stressful, that she will not play a perfect match, because no one ever does. Can she win? And if she can't, can she redirect her energy away from the way it manifested in Melbourne, Indian Wells and Paris? Sabalenka is a big Novak Djokovic fan. Djokovic is an incredible winner — obviously, 24 Grand Slams. He's also an incredibly gracious loser, in public. That's taken as the thing to be in tennis — even if some needle is good for business and for the sport. Who can break the Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner streak — and when? Remember what it was like to be a tennis fan this time of year between 2006 and 2008, when Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer played in the final of the French Open and Wimbledon for three consecutive years. Federer won the U.S. Open in each of those years, and the Australian Open in 2006 and 2007. Advertisement It was an incredible rivalry and a testament to their dominance of the sport. It was great. Wasn't it? Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner have now won every Grand Slam since the start of 2024. It's great. Or is it? And if it isn't, can anyone who's going to be contending in three years (that means anyone not named Djokovic) do anything about it? This is the question that Holger Rune, Lorenzo Musetti, Jack Draper, Ben Shelton and some players even younger than them are going to have to start answering. Tennis, meanwhile, might have to get better acquainted with the difference between a player's ceiling and their current peak. Draper has won a Masters 1,000 title, the rung below a Grand Slam. So has Rune. So has Jakub Menšík. Musetti has been in a final at that level. Shelton reserves his best tennis for the majors. But it's João Fonseca who gets the most adulation, who looks the player best positioned to challenge the Alcaraz-Sinner duopoly despite never being ranked inside the top 50. Advertisement Why? He's 18, sure, but Menšík is barely 19 and inside the top 20. Draper is No. 4 in the world. How can this Brazilian guy be the one compared to them? Now we get to ceilings. Alcaraz and Sinner finished inside the top 40 in their first full seasons on the main ATP Tour. Fonseca is on his way to something like that. He has a cannon forehand. He can direct his backhand down the line almost better than he hits it crosscourt. He can take rackets out of top-10 players' hands. Just not consistently yet, and he hasn't worked out how to grind reliably when his first plan doesn't work. Menšík and Learner Tien, who Fonseca beat to win the ATP Next Gen Finals last year, are more ready for deeper runs than Fonseca is for now. For the long term? The Brazilian is ready for the biggest things in the sport. So is someone coming into disrupt this duopoly anytime soon? Or will Djokovic have to look at the younger generation and realize that, at least for now, he has to do it himself? To use a favorite phrase of Sinner and Alcaraz, 'Lets' see…' How will the removal of line judges impact the tournament? When the supposedly impregnable electronic line calling (ELC) malfunctioned at the Eastbourne Open this week, the whoops of delight from the traditionalists might have been heard over the high winds on the UK's south coast. Advertisement At the first sniff of technical trouble at Wimbledon, except something even more unabashed. For the first time in the event's 148-year history, it has dispensed with human line judges in favor of ELC, which is used at all ATP Tour-level and combined events and two of the other Grand Slams but is not immune to glitches. At Eastbourne last Monday, a misleading image disagreed with the system's call during a first set tiebreak between Fonseca and Zizou Bergs. Players are overwhelmingly in favour of ELC, because of how it removes doubt and takes away their need to self-officiate. Until this year, players had to challenge a call they disputed in a timely fashion, meaning that they had to think about their next shot, whether or not to challenge and what their opponent would do on their next shot all at once. If the technology does fail at Wimbledon, then each court will have a couple of match officials to step in, but assuming all goes to plan, players and fans will have to get used to a relatively bare court, with the elegantly dressed line judges who have been such a feature of Wimbledon throughout its long history absent. Will that absence be meaningful at this year's event, or will everyone get used to it very quickly and move on? Only time — and perhaps some dubious calls — will tell. Why is the High Court as important as Centre Court? Bubbling away in the background at this year's Wimbledon is the All England Lawn Tennis Club's (AELTC) ongoing legal battle over 39 new grass courts. It wants to construct them, including an 8,000-seat stadium, on the old Wimbledon Park golf course. Doing so would almost triple the size of Wimbledon's grounds and allow the AELTC to host qualifying on site, as the other three majors do. Advertisement The Greater London Authority (GLA) granted planning permission at a hearing in September 2024, but after appeals led by the Save Wimbledon Park (SWP) group, a judicial review will take place Tuesday July 8 and Wednesday July 9 of 2025, right in the heart of the tournament's second week. During the hearing, the AELTC and SWP will outline their arguments, with a decision expected a few weeks later. The case is proving to be a major headache for the AELTC, which is desperate to press on with its expansion plans. Not being able to host qualifying on site (and not being able to pull in the revenue that would come with that) sees it, it says, lose ground on the other three majors. At the pre-tournament briefing a couple of weeks ago, Wimbledon chair Debbie Jevans said that the need for the transformation 'becomes ever more apparent as we see our fellow Grand Slams staging fully integrated three-week events by welcoming many more spectators and staging charity and community events during the qualifying week and, crucially, providing the players with a stage benefiting their sporting excellence'. It feels like no Grand Slam is complete these days without high-level discussions going on in the background, and this year's Wimbledon will be no different. And what about an absent champion? For only the second time since 2004, there will be no Andy Murray in either the singles or doubles draws. Advertisement Last year's opening week — and most of its matches — was dominated by questions of whether he would be healthy enough to compete. Murray withdrew from the singles at the last minute on the first Tuesday, then he staggered through his men's doubles match with his brother Jamie two days later. On middle Saturday came Emma Raducanu's decision to jilt Murray at the altar of the mixed doubles event, with the Brit needing to rest her wrist for singles competition. It's probably a relief for all involved that there is no major Murray storyline this time around. Last year was a painful end in many respects, and the rest of the event got sucked into a vortex by its gravity. The statue of him, which will arrive on the grounds in time for 2027, will have to do stand in his stead: he is not planning to attend at this time. It will fall to one of the other Brits, like Raducanu and Draper, to step up in his absence. Tell us which storylines you are looking out for in the comments. This article originally appeared in The Athletic. Sports Business, Tennis, Women's Tennis 2025 The Athletic Media Company
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
How Liverpool's Transfer Windows Have Evolved Over the Past Decade
Liverpool Transfers: Lessons from History and the Arne Slot Era Liverpool's transfer strategy is once again in the spotlight as the club looks to build upon Arne Slot's historic debut Premier League title. On the Daily Red podcast from Anfield Index, host Dave Hendrick provided a searing retrospective on Liverpool's transfer history, offering deep insight into the missteps of the past and the importance of getting recruitment right in the present. Transfer Decisions and Financial Planning Hendrick opened the show with a timely reminder: 'The Reds are Premier League champions.' He noted that Milos Kerkez has been confirmed as a new signing and explained that, 'the Kerkez deal, the Wirtz deal, the Mamardashvili deal and the Frimpong deal will all be on the 24/25 ledger.' He added that July 1st would mark the beginning of a new financial year, which could open the door for moves for players like Alexander Isak or Gonçalo Inácio. Advertisement Importantly, Hendrick framed these timings within the club's compliance with profit and sustainability rules. 'It's good for us to split it because it means that we don't have too much of a financial hit in one year.' He acknowledged that Liverpool have held back on certain deals such as Jarell Quansah's exit or potential moves involving Darwin Núñez and Luis Díaz, likely for similar accounting reasons. Past Mistakes and Transfer Tragedies Hendrick didn't hold back as he analysed the transfer failures of the past. Referring to Graeme Souness' reign, he said, 'the biggest mistake was probably selling Peter Beardsley… he was still one of the best players in the league four years after this.' He revisited the infamous summer of 2014 under Brendan Rodgers, describing it as 'an atrocity… borderline war crime.' Reflecting on the post-Suárez spending spree, Hendrick recalled, 'Brendan Rodgers spent 24 million pounds on Adam Lallana,' despite the club already having Philippe Coutinho. 'We had Mamadou Sakho… and Rodgers insisted we spend 20 million on Dejan 'the pebble' Lovren,' he added with scorn. Advertisement But the most scathing remark was reserved for one signing in particular: 'We signed Ricky [expletive] Lambert to replace Luis Suárez… people actually tried to pretend it was something that was going to work.' It was, according to Hendrick, 'the biggest catastrophe of that summer.' Slot's Approach and Future Strategy While Hendrick didn't directly critique Arne Slot's transfer activity, his breakdown made clear how much damage poor recruitment has caused in the past. The emphasis on strategic, financially timed acquisitions in the current window stands in stark contrast to the rash decisions of previous regimes. Liverpool's recent successes in the market under Michael Edwards and later Julian Ward appear to be the benchmark. As Hendrick observed, 'We've been really good in the transfer market for the majority of the last ten years.' With Arne Slot now leading the team and the club in a strong position both on the pitch and in the balance sheet, the lessons from history are more relevant than ever. Avoiding past pitfalls—like buying for the sake of it or caving to public pressure—is vital. And as Liverpool continues their rebuild, Hendrick's insight provides a compelling reminder: smart transfers win titles, but poor ones can cost you years.
