Young England stars told they must ‘nail basics’ to overcome France

England U20 Women No.8 Steph Else has urged her teammates to concentrate on their “discipline and just nailing our basics” as they attempt to secure a rare age-grade victory against France in Parma on Sunday.

Else, the Premiership Women’s Rugby Young Player of the Season, was part of the team that lost 74-0 to Les Bleuettes in Rouen in April.

That is the biggest defeat ever suffered by an England women’s team and the Gloucester-Hartpury star admitted this week that it had left the squad in “quite a lot of pain”.

However, Else, who captained England to their 55-24 Six Nations Women’s Summer Series victory against Wales on Tuesday, believes the side has improved since then.

And she is confident they have what it takes to secure a second victory in this fixture’s history, in northern Italy.

“I think we're starting to kick on a bit,” she told RugbyPass. “The first game (of the Summer Series against Ireland), I don't think we hit third gear.

“And I think now we're starting to hit those top gears, and I think it's really showing in our game play and the results that we're getting as well.”

Pressed on what England need to do to beat France, Else added: “It’s [about] nailing our basics, I think.

“Sometimes we almost let ourselves down with our discipline. I think at the start of the game, that's how Wales got in to start with.

“But then when we sorted that out, cleared up and maybe kept our hands out of the ruck or stuff like that, we then started to kick on and the score kept reflecting how we wanted to play.

“But yeah, I think it’s just discipline and just nailing our basics.”

Else was happy with the team’s performance against Wales and believes there has been more attacking synergy between the forwards and backs during their two matches in Italy.

“We definitely weren't hitting the standards that we wanted to in the game against the Army (a 99-5 victory) or the first couple of games of the season,” Else said. “Now it's really showing what we can do as a team and how well we can gel together.

“I think [against Wales] we showed a lot of link play between backs and forwards, and I think that's been our main struggle throughout the season, is gelling between those backs and forwards.”

More broadly, Else puts the reason England lag behind France at age-grade level down to the amount of time the players spend training together.

Many of the players in LJ Lewis’ England squad are already regular first-team members with PWR clubs, and also feature in British Universities and College Sport (BUCS) Super Rugby alongside their studies and international commitments.

Else, for example, played 19 league and cup matches for Gloucester-Hartpury during the 2023-24 season on top of appearing in BUCS Super Rugby with Hartpury.

“They have a lot more time together than we do,” she said. “I think with the time that we have, we're a very good team.

“But they get the chance to be together a lot more throughout the year. Whereas we're with our PWR clubs, we're with BUCS, and obviously we just don't have the facilities to be together as much as we need to.

“But I think we're doing great with the time we've had together.”