Grand Slam champs: 'We can be proud of our perseverance'

It was a bit of a whirlwind of a week leading up to the Grand Slam decider. I sliced my knee open in training on the Wednesday and needed 13 stitches; it wasn’t the start of the week that I wanted in terms of preparing to play at Allianz Stadium for the first time, having missed out through injury in the last two Guinness Women’s Six Nations matches there.

I said to the physios that I wanted to do everything and anything I could to get on the pitch and make sure that I was involved. I managed to do that; I kept the swelling out, and they were really pleased with how it looked going into the game.

In terms of that side of things, it was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster but being able to play and be involved in the build-up, and then set foot on the pitch, it was really special, especially with my friends and family around me.

‘This Energy Never Stops’ – Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025

‘This Energy Never Stops’ – Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025

When it happened, I thought that it was typical me doing something again for a third time in a row. It was just a freak accident and something that I couldn’t control so I think I found that quite hard, but at the same time, after having the stitches in, I knew I had to do everything in my power to play. I then turned it into a positive.

Similar to my knee this time around, my thumb injury before the game in Twickenham last Six Nations was a freak accident as well. The number of times I’d tackled before and nothing’s ever happened, I couldn’t hold back.

I had to do everything at 100% because you’re more likely to get hurt if you try and protect yourself. I just embraced it, I had got through a tough week and realised if it was meant to be, it was meant to be. Singing the anthem and then warming up and stepping onto the pitch, that was a great feeling.

We always know that France are a hard team. We know that they like to play with the ball. I think they showed that with their close picks around the breakdown. We said before the game that we were going to be tested three, four times, and we’d have to win the game that many times, and we definitely had to do that. I think one thing that we can pride ourselves on is we kept our heads and we knew that we had to see out the game and keep trying to move forward.

To sustain pressure and for France to come into the game was nervy for the crowd but for us, we can be proud of our perseverance and ability to see the game out. At the same time, it shows that we’ve still got work to do.

Like Zoe [Aldcroft] said in the team talk after, we know we’ve still got stuff that we want to work on, but we achieved what we wanted to achieve.

We push ourselves to be better in every training session, and you go to dark places together, but to come out and say that we won another Grand Slam, not many teams can say that. We managed to play lots of good rugby together to analyse and take into the World Cup prep.

We’ve shown over the Six Nations that we’ve got such depth in our squad. If you look at the teams throughout the tournament, there were so many changes where people could step in and perform. I think it shows that we can have a wider squad effort, and we don’t have to rely on the starting XV for every game.

What’s really special as well is that we travelled around the country in the tournament. We saw different family members, visited different places, and it was really nice to see all of the northern lot up in York and then a lot of friends and family came down to Allianz Stadium as well because of the occasion.

We now have some time to rest and recovery before getting back to our personalised training programmes. I’m in a cabin in Somerset at the moment, and we’ve been lucky with really nice weather.

 

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We’ve got a few beach days planned, we went to Longleat, and we’re off to an adventure park on the Friday. I then go on holiday to Egypt on Sunday for 10 days. It’s really important to switch off. We’ve got to embrace these precious few weeks off before we start World Cup prep.

Mitch is a big driver of spending time together off the pitch to be successful on the pitch. Those moments where we have to do an activity together or we have to come up with something to do, it’s nice that you have to do something after a tough session.

You go and beat each other up on the pitch, and normally you’d just go and sit in your room, but actually having the opportunity to spend time with people and understand a bit more about them as a person, it’s been massive for us this year and it’s really starting to show.

There are really good relationships in the team. I also think everyone gets on really well as an extended group. In our off time, I know Meg Jones and Abi Burton are meeting up with Maddie Feaunati in New Zealand, and then meeting Lilli Ives Campion in Australia.

Marlie [Packer] and I are going to meet up with Maud [Muir] and Mia [Venner] in Egypt as well because it’s their last day on our first day there. We’re going to meet up and play card games and have a few drinks. It’s nice that there are genuine connections, which is what’s really special.