The England Women’s Under 20s team to contest their first international of the season against France on Sunday at Worcester’s Sixways Stadium has been announced – and features Ceri Large and Charlotte Keane from Worcester RFC.
The 22 selected includes a good mixture of experience from last season’s international campaign, as well as several new up and coming players in the side.
Lichfield Number 8 Harriet Mills, who was involved in the U20s last season, will skipper the England young guns against France on Sunday, kick off 11am.
The clash, which is the first of three games to be played at Worcester on Sunday with England Women and England Men U20s in Six Nations action against France, precedes fixtures against Scotland and Wales this season for the U20s.
England U20s Coach Amanda Bennett said: “We are really excited about this game, though the focus for us is on development. We have concentrated a lot of the training on developing core skills so, although there is a need to develop a game strategy and establish how we want to play, we want the U20s to focus on executing the basics well first and foremost. Whatever the result on Sunday we are going to learn a lot about how this squad thinks, adapts and plays. In particular how they put the core skills into practice and whether they can perform under pressure.”
England U20s last played France in France 11 months ago and suffered a 36-22 defeat.
Bennett added: “We can only expect to win if we play well. Last year the squad learned a lot and there were certainly areas of that performance that needed to improve. We have worked hard to address these in training this year with both new and established U20s players. France are clearly developing a structured pathway for their players and even if some of their U20s have moved on, they will undoubtedly have brought more talent into this squad. We can expect a physical, fast paced game and we know they will be tactically astute as well.”
England U20s (Club, CB, Division)
15 Lucy Demaine (Bristol, Devon, South West)
14 Katie Mason (Bristol, Somerset, South West)
13 Amber Reed (Bristol, Somerset/Devon, South West)
12 Ceri Large (Worcester, Gloucestershire, South West)
11 Rebecca Hughes (Bristol, Somerset, South West)
10 Natasha Jones(Lichfield, Staffordshire, Midlands)
9 Fiona Davidson (Richmond, Surrey,London & South East)
1 Emily Kingston (Gloucester, Gloucestershire, South West)
2 Daniker Willmore (Bristol, Somerset, South West)
3 SarahGeorge (Bristol, Devon, South West)
4 Ellen Gattlin (Rochford Hundred, Essex, London & South East)
5 Fiona Fletcher (Lichfield, Staffordshire, Midlands)
6 Hannah Gallagher (Saracens, Hertfordshire, London & South East)
7 Kayleigh Callaway-Bawden (Newquay Hornets (Queen Bees), Cornwall South West)
8 Harriet Mills (C) (Lichfield, Staffordshire, Midlands)
Replacements:
16 Charlie Notman (Newquay Hornets (Queen Bees), Cornwall, South West)
17 Mica Evans(Exeter Saracens, Devon,South West)
18 Abbie Scott (Keswick, Cumbria,North)
19 Alexandra Matthews (London Irish, Surrey, London & South East)
20 Charlotte Keane (Worcester, Gloucestershire, South West)
21 Emily Scott (Thurrock, Essex, London & South East)
22 Amy Wilson-Hardy (Bristol, Sussex, South West)