{"id":389881,"date":"2026-04-09T13:25:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T13:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/389881\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T13:25:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T13:25:07","slug":"womens-six-nations-2026-helena-rowland-starts-in-much-changed-england-team-for-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/389881\/","title":{"rendered":"Women’s Six Nations 2026: Helena Rowland starts in much-changed England team for Ireland"},"content":{"rendered":"

England utility back Helena Rowland will start at inside centre in a much-changed team for their Women’s Six Nations opener against Ireland at Allianz Stadium on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Centre Tatyana Heard, 31, has been a regular under head coach John Mitchell and started the Rugby World Cup final win over Canada<\/a> in September, but was ruled out of the Six Nations with a foot injury.<\/p>\n

Rowland, who has played for her country in every backline position other than scrum-half, is one of eight changes to the starting team that won England’s first World Cup in 11 years at a sold-out 82,000-capacity Allianz Stadium.<\/p>\n

More than 75,000 tickets have been sold for the game against Ireland, England’s first since becoming world champions.<\/p>\n

It is a fresh half-back pairing with Lucy Packer and Holly Aitchison coming in for Natasha Hunt and Zoe Harrison.<\/p>\n

Loughborough Lightning lock Lilli Ives Campion replaces Bristol Bears lock Abbie Ward – one of four England women’s players to announce they are pregnant.<\/a><\/p>\n

Megan Jones will captain the side after Zoe Stratford<\/a> announced her pregnancy in March.<\/p>\n

Retired England wing Abby Dow, a mainstay under Mitchell, is replaced by Exeter Chiefs Claudia Moloney-MacDonald, who was part of England’s World Cup squad.<\/p>\n

Star full-back Ellie Kildunne – a try-scorer in the final win over Canada – is named in the back three.<\/p>\n

Props Kelsey Clifford and Sarah Bern are named to start in the front row, while explosive flanker Maddie Feaunati starts on the blind-side.<\/p>\n

There is no place for Bristol Bears prop Hannah Botterman – one of the Red Roses’ top performers at the World Cup.<\/p>\n

Loughborough’s 19-year-old forward Haineala Lutui could make her debut from the bench in the second row.<\/p>\n

Mitchell’s side, who are on a 33-game winning run, are chasing an eighth straight Six Nations title and fifth consecutive Grand Slam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England utility back Helena Rowland will start at inside centre in a much-changed team for their Women’s Six…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-389881","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}