\n<\/p>\n
England utility back Helena Rowland will start at inside centre in a much-changed team for their Women’s Six Nations opener against Ireland at Allianz Stadium on Saturday.<\/b><\/p>\n
Centre Tatyana Heard, 31, has been a regular under head coach John Mitchell and started the Rugby World Cup final win over Canada in September, but was ruled out of the Six Nations with a foot injury.<\/p>\n
Rowland, who has played for her country in every backline position other than scrum-half, is one of eight changes to the starting team that won England’s first World Cup in 11 years at a sold-out 82,000-capacity Allianz Stadium.<\/p>\n
More than 75,000 tickets have been sold for the game against Ireland, England’s first since becoming world champions.<\/p>\n
It is a fresh half-back pairing with Lucy Packer and Holly Aitchison coming in for Natasha Hunt and Zoe Harrison.<\/p>\n
Loughborough Lightning lock Lilli Ives Campion replaces Bristol Bears lock Abbie Ward – one of four England women’s players to announce they are pregnant.<\/p>\n
Megan Jones will captain the side after Zoe Stratford announced her pregnancy in March.<\/p>\n
Retired England wing Abby Dow, a mainstay under Mitchell, is replaced by Exeter Chiefs Claudia Moloney-MacDonald, who was part of England’s World Cup squad.<\/p>\n
Star full-back Ellie Kildunne – a try-scorer in the final win over Canada – is named in the back three.<\/p>\n
Props Kelsey Clifford and Sarah Bern are named to start in the front row, while explosive flanker Maddie Feaunati starts on the blind-side.<\/p>\n
There is no place for Bristol Bears prop Hannah Botterman – one of the Red Roses’ top performers at the World Cup.<\/p>\n
The 26-year-old is a doubt for the rest of the tournament with an ankle injury that has required a scan – the same ankle she had surgery on after the World Cup.<\/p>\n
Loughborough’s 19-year-old forward Haineala Lutui could make her debut from the bench in the second row.<\/p>\n
Mitchell’s side, who are on a 33-game winning run, are chasing an eighth straight Six Nations title and fifth consecutive Grand Slam.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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England utility back Helena Rowland will start at inside centre in a much-changed team for their Women’s Six Nations opener against Ireland at Allianz Stadium on Saturday. Centre Tatyana Heard, 31, has been a regular under head coach John Mitchell and started the Rugby World Cup final win over Canada in September, but was ruled<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12561,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}