{"id":98857,"date":"2025-08-28T14:09:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T14:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/98857\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T14:09:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T14:09:07","slug":"womens-rugby-world-cup-marlie-packer-captains-much-changed-england-against-samoa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/98857\/","title":{"rendered":"Women’s Rugby World Cup: Marlie Packer captains much-changed England against Samoa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jess Breach, who is one score away from 50 international tries, retains her spot after two tries against the USA, as does impressive outside centre Megan Jones.<\/p>\n

Jones is joined by Gloucester-Hartpury’s Jade Shekells in the midfield, with Emma Sing named at full-back.<\/p>\n

In the forwards, lock Lilli Ives Campion and flanker Abi Burton are set for World Cup debuts after being named to start.<\/p>\n

Maddie Feaunati starts at number eight against the nation her father Zak played for 13 times.<\/p>\n

Prop Mackenzie Carson could make her first appearance from the bench after being injured in this year’s Six Nations.<\/p>\n

World Rugby women’s player of the year Ellie Kildunne, who starred with two tries against the United States, is included on a strong bench that includes last week’s starting half-backs Natasha Hunt and Zoe Harrison.<\/p>\n

Samoa, who are fully amateur and ranked 15th in the world, lost their opening game 73-0 to Australia.<\/a><\/p>\n

Given England played two different teams across this year’s Women’s Six Nations and still won a fourth consecutive Grand Slam, they are likely to record a big scoreline in Northampton despite the wholesale changes.<\/p>\n

A bonus-point victory will put Mitchell’s side in a strong position to qualify for the knockout stages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jess Breach, who is one score away from 50 international tries, retains her spot after two tries against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-98857","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\/98857","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=98857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}