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England face New Zealand in a World Cup final clash on Saturday which has the potential to take women’s rugby to a whole new level.
The Red Roses and their head coach Simon Middleton are looking for what would be their 31st successive win at Auckland’s Eden Park.
Victory would seal global glory for the third time.
Ahead of a huge game, Middleton sat down with our own World Cup-winning coach Sir Clive Woodward to discuss his team’s chances of success…
Simon Middleton: This is an absolute pleasure, thanks for having me on board.
Sir Clive Woodward: Thanks for joining us Simon in such a big week for your team. It’s great to speak to you and I think everyone involved in the England team deserves a great deal of credit. There is a lot of sport on right now but the coverage of this World Cup has been fantastic. I wanted to start by asking you about England leading the way on professional contracts for women’s players. How important has that been to your World Cup journey?
Simon Middleton's England are looking for a 31st straight victory at Eden Park on Saturday
SM: Our players are centrally contracted and have been since 2019. We have 30 players on them. There are five players in our World Cup squad who don’t. A number of players also have contracts with their clubs which reflects the growth of the women’s game. It’s been really important. My role has changed quite a bit since I started. It’s now less hands-on coaching and more about managing all aspects of the women’s programme.
CW: Between 1997 and 2003 when I was England coach I’d like to think we were leading the way in in terms of professional standards and I had great support from the RFU and Francis Baron who was the chief executive at the time. It looks like it’s the same with you and the women’s team now?
SM: We’ve got a great support team of 19 people on the ground in New Zealand. We’ve got everything we need. We have a full, holistic support team working with the players including strength and conditioners and a psychologist. We’ve got everything covered and couldn’t wish for more.
CW: That’s great to hear.
England have a strategy group that runs the game plan for each match at the World Cup
SM: We’re supported in every facet of the game by the RFU. That’s been spearheaded by the central contracts. We work the players hard and ask a lot of them but it’s a two-way thing. There is huge support from the players for the staff around them. The players never get anything less than the best from them.
CW: How do the other teams look at England and how do they compare in the professional stakes?
SM: France have been the closest to us for a good while now and New Zealand have just announced a whole package of contracts for their players. Wales and Ireland have also gone full time. I’d like to think we have been the catalyst and others have followed. We’re getting there slowly in the women’s game.
CW: How have you found this World Cup?
SM: It’s been amazing. It’s been incredibly intense in some periods but we have been very in-depth with our planning. We knew we were likely to be here for eight weeks so getting the right balance between when to switch on and when to switch off was a massive part of our preparation. We’ve created a lot of downtime for the players. Most of them have friends and family with them here now and we were fortunate that New Zealand relaxed their Covid rules just before we arrived. That’s meant the players can spend time with their loved ones.
We’ve inadvertently created some fantastic player and staff competitions we’ve all been able to engage in. It seemed like eight weeks would be a long time here, but it’s flown by. The environment has been fantastic. We’ve enjoyed New Zealand as a place. The feedback from the players has been that they’ve enjoyed the journey so far. It’s been great. Ultimately, it will either be an unbelievable trip or just great. It depends what happens on Saturday!
England prepare to face New Zealand in front of a sold-out 40,000-strong Auckland crowd
CW: I do envy you. People sometimes forget what a great country New Zealand is. It’s rugby mad and it’s important to take that in and enjoy every second. There has been a lot of media talk about the style of rugby your England team plays. It always makes me chuckle when you get criticised for winning! Some have said your game plan is too forward dominated. Have you been frustrated by that as the head coach?
SM: It annoyed me and frustrated me at first. And then I found it quite funny to be honest! I need to be careful what I say here! It depends how you look at things. Some people have criticised, but we also have some very well-educated rugby fans in England and they have been supportive of what they’ve seen. There is skill in how you construct a great set-piece and a good tactical game. Some people look at things on the surface and because we don’t throw the ball around like the Black Ferns, they think it’s not entertaining.
It’s funny. I got asked how worried I was by England scoring so many tries from driving line-outs. I’d say I’m not half as worried as the opposition coaches! I thought that was a classic. You pick your moments. In our semi-final with Canada we lit up a couple of times by getting our backs on the ball. People forget how many tries we scored against South Africa and Fiji.
CW: Some of those tries were just fantastic. There is no other way of describing it. This reminds me of the 1991 World Cup final between England and Australia at Twickenham. England went through that tournament playing a specific way. It wasn’t just
