When Katy Mclean gives her first pre-match team talk since the World Cup final in Ireland on Friday she could be forgiven for thinking she is back in the classroom.
After relinquishing the captaincy for two matches, the former primary school teacher is back to lead an England side brimming with youth and looking to build on the green shoots of recovery evident in the comprehensive 39-7 victory over Italy two weeks ago.
Recovery because, in the absence of so many World Cup winners – either through retirement or sevens commitments – England’s inexperience was brutally exposed in a 13-0 opening defeat to Wales and but for Mclean’s return as vice-captain, Italy would not have been disposed of so comprehensively.
On Friday, as well as Mclean, there will be only three survivors from last August’s World Cup final in the starting XV and, more pertinently, the crushing 40-7 semi-final victory over Ireland, who recorded a shock 25-0 home win when these sides met in 2013 – a first ever triumph over England – en route to a maiden grand slam.
That Ireland are also a team in transition and have also suffered one defeat – at home to the champions, France – will therefore take a little sting out of Friday’s clash, the loser of which will effectively drop out of the race for the Six Nations title.
“We’ve had a couple of interesting results against them. A couple of years ago they really turned up and we didn’t,” said Mclean. “When we played against them in the World Cup semi I think it was one of our best displays, so both teams will have their backs up. Both teams need to get a win to stay in the competition. They are similar to us, they’ve lost a couple of key players so they are like us in developing new talent and trying to find their feet.”
The new England talent Mclean refers to includes the 18-year-old outside-centre Abbie Brown, the wing Sydney Gregson and the scrum-half Bianca Blackburn, who dovetailed with her new captain to impressive effect against Italy. Up front, meanwhile, the second-row Abbie Scott is another catching the eye. Nonetheless, Mclean is only too aware of how her role as captain has changed. “As as a 10 you have that role of controlling the game, but for me it’s a double-edged sword to make sure the forwards are being given direction but also to look after some of the younger girls,” she added.
“This is an exciting time for them, they can go and play and show what they can do, but it’s important to get that balance compared to when you have the likes of Emily Scarratt, experienced internationals who know what they want to do and when they want to do it.
“We have a hell of a lot of pace with Sydney Gregson and Abbie Brown, so we want to use our backs. But it’s also about being a bit more sensible.”
Mclean’s return as captain may have restored some stability but this week saw further change with the appointment of Simon Middleton to a newly created overarching role as head coach of both the sevens and the XVs sides.
Already in charge of the sevens set-up and having acting as the XVs’ backs coach at the World Cup, Middleton, who takes up the role in May with Nicky Ponsford in temporary charge until then, is a familiar face and evidently an establishment man in the mould of Stuart Lancaster, having previously worked alongside him at Leeds Carnegie.
But, with most of England’s 20 full-time professionals focused solely on the more lucrative world sevens series and the lustre of next year’s Olympics, sceptics will fear that the XVs side – at least until the 2017 World Cup comes into sharper focus – will be little more than a breeding ground for the shorter form. For Mclean however, the benefits of having Middleton overseeing both camps are manifold.
“There have been a lot of changes recently but Simon is really about the detail, he has been involved since before the World Cup so a lot of the girls know him and have been coached by him,” she said.
“Managing both programmes will help the integration between the sevens and the XVs. It smoothes it over. He’s obviously worked more with the full-time girls regularly. He knows where we are and so he can look into the XVs programme and develop some of the younger talent.”
England team to face Ireland
L Cattell (Saracens); R Laybourn (Darlington MPS), A Brown (Bristol), C Large (Worcester), S Gregson (Bristol); K Mclean (capt, Darlington MPS), B Blackburn (Worcester); R Clark (Worcester), V Fleetwood (Saracens), L Keates (Worcester), T Taylor (Darlington MPS), A Scott (Darlington MPS), A Matthews (Richmond), H Gallagher (Saracens), H Millar-Mills (Waterloo). Replacements A Cokayne (Lichfield), H Kerr (Darlington MPS), J Lucas (Lichfield), R Burnfield (Richmond), H Field (Richmond), F Davidson (Darlington MPS), M Goddard (Worcester), A Reed (Bristol).
