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England head coach John Mitchell has said that he can “only see the positive side” to renaming of Twickenham as as his Red Roses prepare to become the first home side to grace Allianz Stadium.
Mitchell’s side take on New Zealand, the reigning world champions, at the home of English rugby on September 14 as they gear up for the second edition of WXV.
The fixture comes just over a year before the venue hosts the World Cup final, with the Rugby Football Union (RFU) hoping to sell out the stadium for the showpiece decider next September and set a new record crowd.
Allianz’s deal, worth in excess of £100m and signed on a long-term basis, will provide investment both into England’s elite teams and the community game, as well as enabling the RFU to explore necessary redevelopments of their home.
And Mitchell — whose Red Roses also take on France in September before defending their WX1 crown in Canada — is hugely supportive of the deal.
“It twists my tongue a little bit, but I’ll get there,” Mitchell, who spent six years as an assistant to England’s men across two stints, said of the name change ahead of the encounter with the Black Ferns. “I can only see the positive side.
“It’s a historical stadium, it’s the home of English rugby. And there’s not only the investment into high performance, but you’ve also got to look at the foundations and the grassroots. The stadium needs to redevelop as well so that it caters for [potentially] a bigger audience.
“It’s like playing in a Colosseum in the winter. It’s a proposition to come down this tunnel here and enter the changing rooms, it’s a challenging place and asks a lot of questions of people. To me, it’s great that we’re able to have that kind of investment and continue growing the game and making sure that we’ve also got a fantastic national stadium.”
An enlarged group has been in camp at London Irish’s old training facility in Sunbury-on-Thames, with Mitchell set to trim his squad ahead of the two WXV warm-up fixtures before naming a 30-player squad for the tournament in Canada.
Limited experimentation is expected against either France or New Zealand, England’s two closest rivals, as the head coach looks to build “trust and cohesion”.
The Red Roses romped to another Six Nations grand slam in Mitchell’s first full campaign with the squad earlier this year, but Mitchell believes this next period is key as he looks to lead England to a World Cup crown they last won in 2014.
“This is probably the most important pre-season leading into the long-term goal,” the New Zealander explained. “Obviously dealing with the short-term, it’s probably harder than a World Cup with the warm-up tests before we go to WXV.
“We’ve got New Zealand twice, we’ve got France once and we’ve got Canada and they’re all in the top three teams in the world.
“I think our game’s definitely working, but we want to get faster at it. We’re looking to add to our attack and our defence. I think the capacity of the girls is definitely growing, and we’re obviously building resilience, which is going to be needed over the course of the next 400 days with the home World Cup.
“Yes we’ve done well in the Six Nations, yes we’ve done well in WXV, and maybe we could just sit on our laurels and continue with the way that we approach things, but how can we just squeeze a little bit more out of each other?”
