40 minutes ago
image source, Getty Images
image description,
Lark Atkin-Davies carries the ball for England in last year's victory over Canada in Exeter
|
Women's Six Nations: Italy vs England |
|---|
|
Venue: Sergio Lanfranchi Stadium, Parma. Dates: Sunday, March 24th. Kick-off: 3:00 p.m. GMT |
|
Coverage: Watch live on ` Two, ` iPlayer and online; Text commentary, highlights and coverage on the ` Sport website and app. |
Hooker Lark Atkin-Davies says England want to show “diversity” in their game to win a sixth consecutive women’s Six Nations title.
England are favorites to become the defending champions but Atkin-Davies says they want to “continue to improve their performance”.
The Red Roses begin their campaign live on ` Two against Italy in Parma on Sunday 24 March at 3pm GMT.
“The most important thing for us is to show some variety in what we can do as forwards and defenders,” Atkin-Davies said.
“Italy has three wins in the WXV and will therefore go into the game with confidence.”
“We know that Italy always perform brilliantly and play a lot of ball, so we expect a lot of different challenges from them.”
“It's about us focusing on our performances because we know what Italy will bring given the unpredictability of their game.”
Middleton's successor John Mitchell will take charge of the Red Roses for the first time in a Six Nations game on Sunday.
Mitchell and his side have their eyes set on next year's home World Cup but Atkin-Davies, 29, from Bristol, says winning the Six Nations is the first goal.
“As much as we are focused on the World Cup, it is about us as players and about us as individuals doing our job in the Six Nations first.”
“It’s a huge tournament and we want to perform and continue to improve our performance. Then we will look at the WXV and preparing for the World Cup.”
She added: “I love being challenged and learning with JM.” [Mitchell] When he comes in he tries to improve our game through variety and faster play.
“There’s a lot we can work on physically and game-wise, but we’re always trying to get better.”
Atkin-Davies' comments were echoed by England assistant coach Louis Deacon, who says Mitchell is challenging the players to keep improving.
“It’s been great having John and he really challenges the players to develop our game,” Deacon said.
“He wants to get better at speeding up the game and putting pressure on the opponent and he really challenges us to find a different way to do that.”
“He challenges us as coaches to create a learning environment. The amount of information we give to the players is probably something they’ve never experienced before, but that’s rugby.”
“Some of our girls are very experienced and some have only been here a year or two. That’s why we challenge the players to see how much they learn, especially in terms of game strategy and how we want to play on the weekend.”
Comments are closed.