How John Mitchell is giving Red Roses a purpose in 2025

England head coach John Mitchell has put in place a plan to give all Red Roses clarity as players battle for a space in the home Rugby World Cup 2025 squad.

Mitchell, who took over from Simon Middleton in 2023, described how his prior planning of announcing the teams for two fixtures at a time will help give each player in the England camp a purpose during the Six Nations and beyond.

“Our girls know exactly who's playing next week. We've known all our roles for the first two weeks of the competition. We're well planned, it reduces the anxiety, creates clarity,” he told the media in York following England’s opening Women’s Six Nations victory against Italy.

“I like to plan, it would be stupid not to plan with what's ahead in the year. For me, a lot of thought has gone into this, and we'll be a better group for making sure that everyone has a purpose.

“Ultimately, we've had a great start, we brought pressure, we had some great examples of putting pressure on the opposition, and we've got some great examples of where we can take some punches and deal with it.

“We've got a squad that's got it started, and we've got another group that's going to be sitting back ready to go again next week. The Red Roses don't sit still; they'll keep pushing each other.

“From our point of view, we back the whole squad. We're trying to give everyone a purpose in 2025. We want to create competion for places, there are no guarantees. We're backing everyone and giving people the opportunities in their positions allows us to be able to build a connection and a cohesion that is going to hold us in good stead.”

With competition for a spot on the team highly contested as a result of England’s strength and depth, Emma Sing, whose performance Mitchell described to be ‘outstanding’ in her first Test in 16 months, is one such player who is trying to stake her claim for a place.

The fullback, who has World Rugby Women’s XVs Player of the Year for 2024, Ellie Kildunne, to contend with as competition for the 15 shirt among others, said of Mitchell’s fortnightly squad announcements: "It's massive. Getting the combinations, they can then build together for an extra week, and I think that will only help us get together as a team and the connections especially.”

Sing’s seventh Test cap saw her score a try against Italy, the same opposition she scored her first international try against in the 2022 Six Nations. The 24-year-old continued her form both with ball in hand and from the tee from Gloucester Hartpury’s three-peat winning 2024/25 season, with their history-making victory in the final happening only a week prior, where she also scored a try.

At the culmination of the PWR season, Sing was the top points scorer with 163 points.

She said after the Six Nations win in York: “It's about being yourself at the end of the day. One thing Mitch goes on about is being yourself. He wants what Gloucester get out of me, in an England shirt, so as long as I can adapt to that, I can try to play both styles of rugby well.

"You've got world-class players across the 37-man squad. To be able to get an opportunity is massive, and we're only going to push each other to get better as well.”