Haidee Head: 'It was cool being there and experiencing it all'

When Haidee Head arrived Trailfinders Women the 21-year-old had never been involved in an international set-up.

Since coming to England the back-row has taken part in England U21 Women camps and was even invited to John Mitchell’s first England Red Roses camp of 2026 alongside a number of her club teammates.

Qualifying for England thanks to her Warwickshire-born mum, Head has certainly been making the most of her time in Premiership Women’s Rugby and shown off the skills honed with the Queensland Reds in Super Rugby Women’s throughout her teenage years.

While only having put together a small sample size from her time in England so far, it is easy to see why national team coaches like what they see in the youngster’s abundance of carries and consistent improvement in her defence.

“I’ve never actually been invited into an international set-up, even when I was back in Australia I wasn’t invited into an international set-up, so it was really cool just to generally see how the pathway does it,” Head told PWR.

“The Red Roses are known to have one of the best pathways in the world, and you can see it. It’s very structured, they get the Roses coaches in as well which is really cool to have coaching from their top team at a pathway level.

“And with the senior Roses, for the squad I got invited into, it was just all about culture and how they want to get better as a team. Just seeing how the girls were, and it was just kind of cool just being there and experiencing it all.”

Head has not made an appearance for Trailfinders since the club’s 27-26 loss to Harlequins in the first week back from the winter break.

Sent to the sin bin and forced to watch as Claudia Pena slotted a conversion to win it in extra time, her club have since drawn with Bristol Bears and lost to Sale Sharks last weekend.

This weekend the club travel to Leicester Tigers for Saturday’s early kick-off. Still in semi-final contention, five points adrift of fourth-place Harlequins, the need to get back to winning ways has never been more pressing.

“I think we’ve been focusing on closing things out,” Head said. “We’ve obviously had quite a few games that have been quite tight.

“There’s been more focus on how, in important moments, obviously we love to throw the ball around, but maybe it’s not necessarily a time for that style when there’s 10 minutes to go.

“For me as a young player, it’s a really important thing to learn, and especially just learning is the best way to play in that scenario to continue and close out the win.”