John Mitchell has described coaching England\u2019s World Cup-winning women\u2019s team as a life-changing event and revealed he is open to the idea of continuing in his role beyond the 2026 Six Nations.<\/p>\n
England beat Canada 33-13<\/a> at a sold-out Twickenham, with a record 5.8 million watching on television, to lift the World Cup and extend their winning run to 33 games, an unbeaten streak that takes in the whole of Mitchell\u2019s reign, which began in 2023.<\/p>\n \u201cSome parts of the day will stick in my life forever,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cWhen we got off the bus, we were walking over to the entry and I had a quick glance at the south stand and the place was just spinning with people. I don\u2019t think I have ever seen that before.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought the national anthems, the way they were sung, seemed so powerful. It seemed so England, which was cool. To be associated with these girls, they are driven, they have changed my life, changed the way I think as well. All of those sorts of things are added bonuses. A trophy is one thing, a medal is another thing but actually the quality of the people you work with is the ultimate.<\/p>\n \u201cMost of my career has been in the men\u2019s game, it\u2019s a bias isn\u2019t it? It was the only reference I ever had. To get the opportunity to coach these girls you have got to observe and listen and find ways to make them tick.\u201d<\/p>\n Mitchell\u2019s England contract expires after next year\u2019s Six Nations but he gave an open-ended answer when asked about his future. \u201cI am still part of the next chapter,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have a Six Nations in April. I have got plenty of time to think about it. Take a little break and then do some road trips in November to make sure we are back into a new goal and in January we will probably do another road trip to make sure we invest in the right people going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n John Mitchell has helped England to a 33-game unbeaten run. Photograph: Tom Jenkins\/The Guardian<\/p>\n The players have described the experience as \u201cunbelievable\u201d with 81,885 in the stands to set a new attendance record for a women\u2019s rugby game. Abbie Ward, who scored a try in the final, felt there has not been a game played at Twickenham with an atmosphere like the one they experienced.<\/p>\n \u201cI think anyone who came yesterday is going to come back,\u201d Ward said. \u201cThe energy, everyone that we have spoken to, whether you are a diehard Red Roses fan or it was your first occasion it was unbelievable. You talk about moments and trying to encapsulate a moment, that is one we will genuinely never ever forget.<\/p>\n \u201cGetting off the bus, it was unbelievable. Let\u2019s see that again, let\u2019s have that again, let\u2019s have that in the Women\u2019s Six Nations against Ireland. Any game that has been at Twickenham, I genuinely think that atmosphere was unmatched. Bring it on, let\u2019s see more of that.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week’s action reviewed<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n England\u2019s next game will be that Ireland Six Nations match at Twickenham on 11 April. The player to lead them into that game is the captain, Zoe Aldcroft, who led them in Saturday\u2019s final and who broke down in tears when they were confirmed as world champions.<\/p>\n She said of the moment: \u201cI think it was a moment of absolute pride. We built this over three years and it was just so special to take in that moment and enjoy the 82,000 people that were there and this special group on the pitch. It was a moment of \u2018we\u2019ve bloody done it\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n England players will have a break now before heading back to their Premiership Women\u2019s Rugby clubs with the league season beginning again on 24 October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Mitchell has described coaching England\u2019s World Cup-winning women\u2019s team as a life-changing event and revealed he is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-167208","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\/167208","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=167208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}