18 players from the England party that returned from last week's French tour on Sunday have been selected in the squad for the Black Fern tests, which start at the end of this month - including both Hannah Gallagher and Michaela Staniford of Hertfordshire. They will be joined by eight World Cup veterans who return to the colours - including Maggie Alphonsi, also of Hertfordshire.
England will take on their old rivals over two weeks with the first test kicking off at Twickenham Stadium on November 26th, kick off 5pm following the Australia versus Barbarians clash. The women’s rugby giants will then meet again on November 29th and December 3rd at Esher RFC.
The two sides haven’t met since the Rugby World Cup final 14 months ago when New Zealand just edged out the host nations 13-10 in a thrilling final in front of a record breaking crowd, denying England their chance to lift the world cup crown again.
Hannah is one of only two of the five new caps who played against France to make the cut for the New Zealand series - Richmond's Alexandra Matthews is the other. Commenting on the selections, England coach Gary Street said:
“Barring a handful of injuries I have been able to select the core squad from last year’s Rugby World Cup. This means we have a lot of experience in the side as well as a lot of potential through our younger players. We have got some exciting new caps in Alexandra Matthews and Hannah Gallagher who did an excellent job against France and certainly did enough to cement their place in this squad.
“I am sure for our experienced players there is the matter of unfinished business against New Zealand. In the world cup final we didn’t play to our potential and I know the players will want to put that right against New Zealand in our first game at Twickenham Stadium.”
England head into the series on the back of a winning Six Nations and Nations Cup campaign while New Zealand have not played an international test match since being crowned world champions in 2010. Street, however, is not expecting anything less that another world class performance from the Black Ferns.
“New Zealand’s international record is second to none, they always turn up and I am not expecting anything less for this series,” added Street. “Like us they too have a strong world cup contingent in their squad as well as some young players, which is really going to set up this series to be a thriller.”
Full squad here
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment