During this tournament, she has been able to lean on Meg Jones a little more to lift her mood.<\/p>\n
Like the new England skipper, Packer was born and raised in Wales. The pair will occasionally swap a word or two of Welsh, a reminder of home and family.<\/p>\n
“We have just some funny phrases that no-one else really understands, but it really makes us laugh,” says Packer.<\/p>\n
“She’s very good at making things quite light and I’m probably the opposite – I make it quite serious.”<\/p>\n
There is plenty to be serious about when they face France in Bordeaux.<\/p>\n
Given England’s home run at the 2025 Rugby World Cup, WXV’s sparse crowds and an expected record attendance at the 42,000-capacity Stade Atlantique, it is likely to be the most hostile environment the Red Roses have played in since that fateful defeat in Eden Park in 2022.<\/p>\n
The streak of 37 straight wins England have put together since is in definite peril.<\/p>\n
But, beyond her notes and focus points, there is something else, less easily defined, that bolsters Packer amid the stress.<\/p>\n
“As a team we are all overly critical of ourselves, but there is a bond that’s really important to us,” she says.<\/p>\n
“The biggest thing is how tight we are as a group – and that just really carries us through.”<\/p>\n
Packer, her team and that togetherness will be tested.<\/p>\n
But the scrum-half, book smart, street smart and quick smart at the breakdown, can pass most things.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During this tournament, she has been able to lean on Meg Jones a little more to lift her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-672980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672980","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=672980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}