'If they want to earn the right': How Mitchell is attacking Red Roses squad selection

It is clear that John Mitchell has places up for grabs in his England Red Roses team this Guinness Women’s Six Nations.

With Zoe Stratford, Lark Atkin-Davies and Abbie Ward all out of action due to pregnancy, competition in the Women’s Rugby World Cup winners’ squad could be at an all-time high this Spring.

Megan Jones will captain the team in Stratford’s absence this calendar year and lead a 38-player squad that boasts 1,143 Test caps heading into the team’s Guinness Women’s Six Nations opener against Ireland on Saturday 11 April.

Seven players in that cohort are uncapped at Test level: Christiana Balogun, Millie David, Haineala Lutui, Annabel Meta, Sarah Parry, Demelza Short and Jodie Verghese.

This varyied experience in the squad will mean that the likes of Lilli Ives Campion and May Campbell will have the opportunity to make a claim for more match minutes in a Test jersey. There is even opportunity for David, Mia Venner and Bo Westcombe Evans take Abby Dow’s place on the wing after her retirement.

Even with shirts up for grabs, Mitchell maintained that his players will have to earn their place in a matchday 23 and has given them “full license” to do just that.

“It’ll come through the competition,” Mitchell said. “It’ll come through the hunger. It’ll come through, whether they’re prepared to chuck the full license at what we’re going to do.

“I’ve seen a lot of young women come into our environment and put the handbrake on. It’s taken them too long to adapt to how we play and how we work.

“I guess the message to all the youngsters; if they want to earn the right at the Six Nations, then they’re going to have to attack it with a full license.

“Some are going to do that. Some aren’t. That’s just the realities of it. If they do it, then there is every opportunity that they potentially will get a chance to play for the Red Roses.”

Ahead of last year’s Guinness Women’s Six Nations, Mitchell discussed how he was going to select squads two matches at a time.

This time around, the World Rugby Coach of the Year – with the differences to his squad at the start of a new Women’s Rugby World Cup cycle – admits that squad selection will be different.

The 61-year-old also said it was doubtful that all 38 of the squad announced on Friday will feature in the tournament as England attempt to win the Championship for an eighth year in a row.

“I’ve got an open mind and a plan,” Mitchell said. “But it will be a weekly exercise, based on that hunger. Based on that ability to handle pressure. Based on the ability to perform.

“That’ll [all 38 players gaining Six Nations selection] really be determined on how they compete and how they perform.

“Unlikely. To be a realist. To just say that you’ve come into the Red Roses and because you get selected into camps and then a squad that you have a right to a Red Roses jumper, I don’t think that’s the way to go. I’m not thinking like that. It’ll have to be earned.”