Mia Venner: 'I'd definitely rather lose now than in two weeks' time'

Gloucester Hartpury may have seen their Premiership Women’s Rugby unbeaten record end with a 41-39 defeat to Trailfinders Women in Round 17.

One thing didn’t change; Mia Venner’s ability to find her way to the try line.

Venner took her tally for this PWR season to 12 tries with a first-half effort that showed the express pace that took her back into the England reckoning during the Guinness Women’s Six Nations.

Her score helped the Circus claim the two points they needed to ensure they finish top of the table with one round of matches remaining.

Earlier in the season a point separated the teams when they met at Kingsholm Stadium, and it was the closest any team came until the Friday night clash at Trailfinders Sports Club. Despite the loss, first place means that Gloucester Hartpury will be at home for their semi-final, which just so happens to be against Trailfinders Women.

“Even though we’re so late in the season, we’ve got a lot of lessons to learn,” Venner told RugbyPass. “We’ve had a lot of people, a lot of changes. We’ve got new leadership coming in, in the form of Becca [Sarah Beckett], and I thought she did an outstanding job.

“We’ve got two more weeks when we can fix things up. We haven’t hit our peak yet, and coming back together [post-Women’s Six Nations] just makes it even harder. We just need to find that groove, work out how each other play, and we’ll be flying into the semis.”

Fortunately, Dan Murphy’s side have one more match to ensure they go into the knockouts with a win behind them. Bristol Bears will travel the 35 miles up the M5 for the Round 18 clash, that gives the three-times champions the chance to hone their play before the semi-finals.

“It’s going to be great,” Venner said. “We were talking in the huddle about how we’re going to fix up for the semi-final, and I thought it was quite good from Murph to say ‘no, we fix up on Tuesday’.

“Our week starts on Tuesday, and that’s where we’re going to start our fix up. We love a home game, we love a local derby, so hopefully we get a good turnout, and it’s a good last league game for us.”

At 24, Venner has found her role at club level start to change this season. No longer a rookie, but a long way off veteran status, her main job may well be what she does on the pitch. But she is aware of the need to play more of a vocal role and help out those younger players who are following her path to the first team.

It is something that has come into focus more since Zoe Stratford, Tatyana Heard and Beckett announced their moves to Sale Sharks at the end of the season, along with injuries to senior players Alex Matthews and Natasha Hunt.

“I feel like change is good for us,” Venner said. “It’s been quite consistent for the last three years. I think the change will be good.

“My role, I don’t think it changes too much. I do my job on the pitch and give as much advice as I can off it. If they want, if they ask, I’ll give it to them, but I try and do my job as well as I can and just keep the team going and keep the energy up.”

Venner and the Gloucester Hartpury squad found out about Stratford, Heard and Beckett’s departures to Greater Manchester before the Women’s Six Nations during a squad social. Their departure comes just over a year after Sean Lynn’s exit to take up the Wales head coaching gig.

Murphy was previously the team’s scrum coach, but he slotted seamlessly into his new role. The situation means that while Stratford, Heard and Beckett will leave large holes in the squad. It will give others the chance to step up and fill them.

“We’re absolutely devastated to be losing them, but each one of us completely understand,” Venner said. “It’s gonna be a big loss, but it’s also going to be a good change. We’ve got to learn from it, and it’s a chance for others as well.

“The environment has been the same. Murph has been talking about the next act, but the next act hasn’t really been the next act, because it’s been the same group of people, same group of players. So next year we might actually genuinely find the next act.”

It wasn’t only at club level that change came Venner’s way. With pregnancies, retirements and injuries wiping out large parts of England’s Women’s Rugby World Cup-winning squad, Venner was one of the players that Red Roses head coach John Mitchell turned to after Abby Dow’s post-Women’s Rugby World Cup retirement opened a spot on the wing.

Venner doubled her caps tally with appearances against Italy and Scotland, and she grabbed a score in both of those matches. Those scores helped England win another Grand Slam, with Meg Jones lifting the trophy after she has stepped in to cover for the pregnant Stratford.

“The change going into the Six Nations obviously was a big change, you had quite a lot of big players out, but it felt quite organic,” Venner said. “You had Lilli Ives Campion stepping into that line-out role, and that felt quite natural for everyone.

“Meg came in and really took the reins and urged people on. Then throughout the Six Nations we had to chop and change, and we had injuries, but I think it was really good to get different combinations in, to really get that depth and test that depth within the team.”

Jones was the chief tormentor as Trailfinders ended Gloucester Hartpury’s unbeaten run. The centre won the Player of the Match award with a performance that mixed unstinting work in defence with inspiration in attack, most notably when her chip and catch opened a gap for Trailfinders scrum-half Ella Armory to race away and score.

The sides will meet again in the semi-finals, back at Gloucester Hartpury’s Kingsholm, where the hosts were 29-28 winners in Round 6.

“We’d rather lose now than in a couple of weeks’ time,” Venner said. “We’re going to take a lot of learnings from this from them, but I think mainly from ourselves.

“Our rugby that we wanted to play, we were playing it, but we were just letting ourselves down in that penalty count. We said at half-time that we needed to keep that down, and then the first thing we did was give away a penalty.

“It’s more about working on ourselves in the next two weeks, and I’d definitely rather lose now than in two weeks’ time.”