England women can take a major step towards claiming their first Six Nations title since 2012 with victory over the defending champions Ireland on Saturday but the captain Sarah Hunter is more concerned with returning to winning ways at Twickenham.
Hunter and co will make the first of their two tournament appearances at Twickenham, having brought the curtain down on last year’s disappointing campaign with a 21-15 defeat by France that condemned the world champions to a fourth place finish.
This year the signs of improvement of evident although Ireland, who have lifted the Six Nations trophy twice since the last of England’s seven consecutive triumphs four years ago, will poise a sterner challenge than that of Scotland and Italy.
Should England, who make one change to the side that defeated Italy 33-24 with Emma Croker coming in for Amy Cokayne at hooker, prevail in both their Twickenham outings – Wales are due in south-west London on 12 March, albeit at the Stoop rather than HQ – then their away trip to France is likely to decide the destination of the championship but Hunter is not looking that far ahead.
“We can’t wait to run out there at Twickenham,” said Hunter, whose side got the better of Ireland 8-3 in November. “This is our first home game of the Six Nations and there’s no better place to play.
“We have the momentum to build on from our first two games and have improved with both of them but we’ll be taking the game as a standalone event and are looking forward to what will be a tough challenge.”
Ireland meanwhile, were beaten by France in their last fixture, having opened with a win over Wales and they slipped to a 17-10 defeat on their previous outing at Twickenham in 2014. The head coach, Tom Tierney, makes two changes to a somewhat inexperienced side – the product of Ireland, much like England, investing more in their sevens programme – with Ciara Griffin coming in at flanker and Nora Stapleton gets the nod at fly-half.
“While the result in France didn’t go our way, I thought there were a lot of positives to take from that game and we will be looking to carry them into this fixture,” said Tierney. “We made too many unforced errors, so if we can rectify that I think we have got a very good chance on Saturday.”
The women’s match will kick-off at 7.15pm at Twickenham, following the men’s RBS 6 Nations game against Ireland, which starts at 4.50pm.
• This articles was corrected on 27 February to reflect the fact that the Wales game is at the Stoop
