{"id":50905,"date":"2025-08-07T18:21:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T18:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/50905\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T18:21:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T18:21:10","slug":"serious-doubt-over-3-key-england-players-for-rugby-world-cup-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/50905\/","title":{"rendered":"Serious doubt over 3 key England players for Rugby World Cup opener"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

England head coach John Mitchell was happy to be wrong about the length of Marlie Packer\u2019s ban for last weekend\u2019s red card, but could be without three key players for their World Cup opener.<\/p>\n

Packer sparked fears about her availability for the first fixture of England\u2019s home World Cup against United States on August 22 after she was sent off in a 97-7 win over Spain for a clumsy clearout on the left leg of full-back Claudia Pena.<\/p>\n

Mitchell expected a two-week suspension, which would have ruled former captain Packer out of the USA clash at the Stadium of Light in Sunderland, but she will only miss Saturday\u2019s final warm-up fixture away to France after World Rugby handed out a one-match ban.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, good outcome wasn\u2019t it? It beat my idea of two weeks, so yeah, pretty good. We\u2019re very happy for Marlie,\u201d Mitchell said, with World Player of the Year Ellie Kildunne<\/a> fit enough to start against France.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that\u2019s done and dusted. That\u2019s gone, that\u2019s fish and chip paper, so we\u2019re onto the next.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fixture<\/p>\n

Women’s Rugby World Cup<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

England Women <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

USA Women <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

England\u2019s immediate focus is a trip to Stade Guy Boniface to take on old foes France and they will again be missing experienced trio centre Emily Scarratt<\/a>, wing Claudia Moloney-MacDonald and fly-half Holly Aitchison.<\/p>\n

Mitchell revealed Scarratt, who is set to feature in a record-equalling fifth World Cup, is unavailable following a head injury assessment (HIA).<\/p>\n

Asked if they would be fit for England\u2019s World Cup opener with USA, Mitchell cryptically replied: \u201cFor the tournament, yes.\u201d<\/p>\n

A total of 11 changes have been made to the England XV which dismantled Spain by a record score.<\/p>\n

Zoe Harrison continues at fly-half, Jess Breach<\/a> and Megan Jones<\/a> again get the nod at left wing and outside centre respectively, while Abbie Ward<\/a> again starts in the second row and captain Zoe Aldcroft<\/a> returns at blindside flanker.<\/p>\n

Full-back Kildunne will make her first appearance since a leg injury ruled her out of England\u2019s final Six Nations<\/a> fixture against France in April.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is ready like everyone else,\u201d Mitchell insisted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are 11 girls who are starting for the first time since we\u2019ve been preparing ourselves going into the tournament. She is like the others, keen as mustard and we\u2019re looking forward to getting started.\u201d<\/p>\n

England held on to claim a 43-42 win over France at Twickenham in April to seal another Grand Slam and captain Aldcroft acknowledged they want to maintain their stranglehold over their rivals.<\/p>\n

Aldcroft said: \u201cThey are obviously a formidable opponent, but it\u2019s important we\u2019re on our top game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that is why this weekend is going to be so important, just to get that psychological edge and we want to put out a good performance and keep our dominance there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England head coach John Mitchell was happy to be wrong about the length of Marlie Packer\u2019s ban for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-50905","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\/50905","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=50905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}