Watch the 2025 Rugby World Cup live and on-demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\nIt was always likely that Aldcroft would have been rotated for Saturday’s game against Samoa in Northampton, but she will now miss the hosts’ final Pool A match against Australia on September 6 as well.<\/p>\n
Aldcroft was one of 13 changes to the starting 15 announced Thursday by coach John Mitchell, with wing Jess Breach and centre Megan Jones — a member of England’s leadership group — the only two players to retain their places.<\/p>\n
Former skipper Marlie Packer takes over as captain, with first-choice backs
\nNatasha Hunt, Zoe Harrison and Ellie Kildunne on the bench.<\/p>\n
Packer, a 111-cap flanker, has not played since being sent off in a World Cup warm-up win over Spain, where she again led the side in Aldcroft’s absence.<\/p>\n
“Megan and I have massively stepped up this week,” Packer said.<\/p>\n
“We’ve been there to support Zoe in whatever she needs, but she’s also been
\ndoing the same for us in training.”<\/p>\n
Emily Scarratt, who won her 119th cap off the bench against the United
\nStates, was due to start against Samoa but was withdrawn from the team because
\nof a shoulder-related nerve issue.<\/p>\n
Claudia Moloney-MacDonald (left wing) and Helena Rowland (fly-half) start after returning from injury, but fly-half Holly Aitchison remains sidelined with an ankle problem.<\/p>\n
Rowland’s availability is a particular boost to England given she also covers centre, full-back and scrum-half.<\/p>\n
“Helena knows that she is the most versatile person within the group. She’s highly valued and is the first name on the team sheet in terms of 23,” Mitchell said.<\/p>\n
The Red Roses are on a 28-game winning run, with their last defeat coming in the Covid-delayed 2022 World Cup final where they suffered an agonising loss to New Zealand in Auckland.<\/p>\n
Samoa were beaten 73-0 by Australia in their Pool A opener.<\/p>\n
England — who fielded two different teams across this year’s Women’s Six Nations and still won a fourth consecutive Grand Slam — could now inflict another heavy defeat upon the Pacific islanders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England captain Zoe Aldcroft has been ruled out of the rest of the pool stage of the Women’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,15131,85],"class_list":["post-105448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-rugby-world-cup","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}