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Mitchell confirms Red Roses duo are out with 'long-term' injuries
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England Red Roses head coach John Mitchell confirmed that Natasha Hunt and Morwenna Talling will be out with “long-term” injuries.
Both left the Allianz Stadium turf with lower leg injuries as the world champions began their 2026 Guinness Women’s Six Nations with a 33-10 win over Ireland in front of a tournament record crowd of 77,120.
“They’ll be long-term, sadly,” Mitchell stated. “We’ve got some good diagnosis on that already. We’ll explain what they are – I’m not technically good enough [to explain] at this point of time. But we’ve acknowledged they are out of the tournament.”
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For England the loss of Talling is particularly significant. Not only was the 23-year-old a significant force in England’s Women’s Rugby World Cup win, her absence means that six-cap Lilli Ives Campion is the squad’s senior second row with Zoe Stratford, Abbie Ward and Rosie Galligan all out of the game with pregnancy.
19-year-old Haineala Lutui replaced Talling in the 43rd minute for her England debut and performed admirably, although Mitchell admitted he will have to call on back-row players to fill in at lock in the coming weeks.
“You never want to see your teammates get hurt,” Mitchell said, “We’ll just adapt. We’ve lost four international locks. We’ll probably be a team of back-rowers by the end of the competition.
“That’s the way it’s going to be. We’ll just have to grow somebody else. But, you know, there’s different ways to play this game. If we have to rely on back-rows, we’ll make it work.”
Mitchell has a series of uncapped options for the pack in his squad. This includes specialist lock Jodie Verghese and versatile Bristol Bears pair Christiana Balogun and Demelza Short.
With that trio untested in international rugby, Mitchell knows that Ives Campion needs experienced players alongside her in the second row after a strong performance on Saturday.
“You look at the outstanding performance of Lilli Ives Campion today,” Mitchell said. “She has four years of being in the programme and been through the pathway and you wouldn’t have thought that was her sixth Test.
“I thought she was outstanding today. Young Lilli’s going to have to last the year. We’re just going to have to ask people to play dual roles.”
