Props MacKenzie Carson, Maud Muir and Kelsey Clifford have collated memories and mementos in scrapbooks.<\/p>\n
Tatyana Heard and Lark Atkin Davies lead a little book club.<\/p>\n
There has been gaming – with an old-school twist. Muir and Jones have been playing Rummikub – a tile-based game inspired by the card game Rummy – while Kildunne has brought the Guitar Hero console game into camp.<\/p>\n
All of it helped to keep the pressure of being both hosts and heavy favourites at bay.<\/p>\n
A mantra repeated again and again inside the camp has been to “be where our feet are”.<\/p>\n
The idea is not to look ahead to what might be or back at how far they have come, but exist in the present, without second-guessing yourself or the consequences of making a mistake.<\/p>\n
The squad have not been totally insulated from the outside excitement about their progress though.<\/p>\n
One morning, on their way to the training pitch, they were confronted by a large pinboard with good luck messages from primary school children around the country.<\/p>\n
There have also been post-match dressing-room visits from both footballing royalty, with Euros-winning Lioness Chloe Kelly celebrating their win over Samoa, and actual royalty.<\/p>\n
Catherine, Princess of Wales, told the team that they had her worried after an even first half against Australia in Brighton. Wing Abby Dow, the most prolific in the team’s collection of crocheters, presented her with a bouquet of knitted red roses as a gift from the team.<\/p>\n
The unity of the squad is evident on game day.<\/p>\n
Emily Scarratt, appearing at her fifth World Cup and a veteran of the team’s last successful title tilt, has been running the water for those selected ahead of her.<\/p>\n
Abi Burton, whose game time has been similarly limited, purchased a drum which has expanded into a full percussion support section.<\/p>\n
As she sat out the quarter-final win over Scotland with concussion, Kildunne was one of those to enthusiastically take up the drumsticks.<\/p>\n
Botterman is generally in charge of the pre-match music playlist, while the players’ intricate braids are woven into place on the morning of the match by an external specialist – the Braid Maidens – because the players doing each others’ became too time consuming.<\/p>\n
The most telling of all the squad’s superstitions is that of captain Zoe Aldcroft. She stows a small knitted figurine of legendary England fly-half Jonny Wilkinson, made for her by a friend’s grandmother when Aldcroft was a teenager, in her kit bag for every game.<\/p>\n
And just like Wilkinson, she is now a Rugby World Cup winner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Props MacKenzie Carson, Maud Muir and Kelsey Clifford have collated memories and mementos in scrapbooks. Tatyana Heard and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164235,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-164234","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}