Being World Cup favourites is 'irrelevant' says John Mitchell

England head coach John Mitchell insists the tag of being Women’s Rugby World Cup favourites is “irrelevant”.

The Red Roses kick off this year’s World Cup at the Stadium of Light against the United States on Friday and also face Samoa and Australia in Pool A.

England enter the tournament ranked number one in the world, but head coach Mitchell believes talk of being favourites is “irrelevant”.

Alex Groves on line-out work

Alex Groves on line-out work

When asked what challenges that title presents, Mitchell replied: “It doesn’t really matter. We start the tournament equal like everyone else.

“Being favourites is irrelevant to us. It might be relevant to your section of the world. We’ve just got to be where our feet are and earn the right each week.”

England are currently on a 27-game winning run and recorded warm-up victories against Spain and France earlier this month.

Friday’s opponents the USA are ranked 10th in the world and Mitchell believes that while his side are likely to be “hunted” by teams during the tournament, they are ready to embrace that.

“It’s really important to basically focus on ourselves,” he said.

“We understand their threats – it’s not that we don’t look at their threats – but ultimately at the end of the day it’s really important to focus on what we do and how we improve our margins, make sure that we perform above our standards.

“I’m sure if we take care of that, then that will take care of the threats.

“Every team will rise 10 or 15 per cent in this tournament because they’re playing against England, that’s just what we expect.

“From that point of view, we realise we’re hunted but we also look forward to that as well.”

Mitchell has named the same starting 15 from the 40-6 warm-up victory over France for the opening game.

Skipper Zoe Aldcroft leads the squad at blindside flanker, with number eight Alex Matthews and openside Sadia Kabeya alongside her in the back row and Abbie Ward and Morwenna Talling lining up in the second row.

Hannah Botterman, Amy Cokayne and Maud Muir complete the forwards.

Vice-captain Megan Jones continues at centre alongside Tatyana Heard, while Jess Breach, Abby Dow and Ellie Kildunne make up the back three, Natasha Hunt starts at scrum-half and Zoe Harrison is at fly-half.

World Cup debutants Kelsey Clifford, Maddie Feaunati and Emma Sing are named as replacements and veteran Emily Scarratt is also on the bench.

Speaking about team selection, Mitchell added: “Ultimately, we’ve tried to build cohesion. We’ve come out of a pre-season, we’re not like the Southern Hemisphere teams which have had a lot of rugby.

“We’re just building, so it’s really important to make sure that you create combinations that players are familiar with.

“We do have history together in the squad that’s selected, a number of minutes over the last three years – I think something like 1200 caps amongst that group of girls.

“That’s a lot of experience and a lot of belief. You’ve got to play those cards in a tournament like this.”