Tattoos, forfeit hairstyles and Channing Tatum – inside Red Roses’ winning camp

Ellie Kildunne waited too long. once more.

The England full-back’s tardiness is infamous among her team-mates. She had a valid excuse this time, though. Due to the consequences of losing a bet at training, she had to arrive later at dinner.

For the team’s evening meal, she was forced to straighten her mop of curly hair.

She said, “I keep my word. “It’s only hair”.

It’s just hair, but it also serves as a crucial indicator of how environmentally friendly England wanted to be during this Rugby World Cup.

Not everyone in the Red Roses camp enjoyed the three-year-old New Zealand campaign.

In a June episode of her Rugby Rodeo podcast, Wing Jess Breach, who only played one game in England’s final, unrepeatedly and bluntly described her 2022 experience.

She described her hopes for England’s 2025 campaign as “I don’t want to have resentment and I don’t want to think of it in just a negative way.”

I don’t want people to be in the squad and experience the same emotions as I did in the first one.

Not always being able to do that. Over the course of a lengthy tournament, weekly selection calls consistently put pressure on a squad’s unity.

Head coach John Mitchell acknowledged this, claiming that “a few” of his squad members still “validate too much in their life around selection.”

However, Mitchell has also praised the maturity with which the majority of his players handled his calls. Everyone is kept involved, regardless of their role on match day, which has been helped by a conscious, collective effort.

The squad wore pyjamas and face masks during Step Up, an early Channing Tatum film, for the semi-final week.

Different groups have developed their own routines outside of the scheduled sessions.

In honor of the locations of each of England’s games, Meg Jones and Hannah Botterman have both been tattooed in honor of their body art. After Sunderland’s first game of the season in the north east, the pair had cats inked in a reference to the football team’s nickname, the Black Cats.

Following that, ice creams for Brighton and a nod to Northampton’s most well-known local industry were served, finishing off the poolside show. Jones was considering flying a hot air balloon to Bristol to celebrate their semi-final.

Memories and remembrances have been gathered in scrapbooks by Props MacKenzie Carson, Maud Muir, and Kelsey Clifford.

A small book club is led by Tatiana Heard and Lark Atkin Davies.

Gaming has been done with an old-fashioned twist. Rummikub, a tile-based game inspired by the card game Rummy, is being played by Muir and Jones, and Kildunne has introduced the Guitar Hero console game.

All of it helped to reduce the pressure of being both heavy favorites and hosts.

Be where our feet are, a mantra that the camp has repeatedly said.

Instead of anticipating what might be or reflecting on how far they have come, the idea is to be present and not to let go of one’s mistakes.

However, the squad hasn’t been completely shielded from the outside excitement surrounding their progress.

A large pinboard with good luck messages from primary school students from different countries confronted them one morning as they were making their way to the training pitch.

Both footballing royalty and royalty have also made post-game appearances in the dressing room, with Chloe Kelly, who won the Euros, expressing her gratitude for their victory over Samoa.

After a scoreless opening half against Australia in Brighton, Catherine, Princess of Wales, complained to the team that she was worried. The team gave her a bouquet of knitted red roses as a gift, and winning Abby Dow is the team’s most prolific crocheter.

On game day, the squad shows signs of team unity.

Emily Scarratt, a veteran of the team’s most recent successful title tilt, has been playing the lottery for the people who came in before her. She will be competing in her fifth World Cup.

Abi Burton purchased a drum with a full percussion support section after a similarly short game of a length.

One of those who enthusiastically wrestled the drumsticks was Kildunne, who had concussion while she was unable to play in the quarter-final match against Scotland.

Botterman typically manages the pre-game music, while an external specialist, the Braid Maidens, weave the players’ intricate braids into place on the morning of the match because it became too time-consuming for them to do their own thing.

Captain Zoe Aldcroft’s superstitions are the most interesting among the squad’s. She packs a small knitted replica of the legendary England fly-half Jonny Wilkinson, which a friend’s grandmother made for her when Aldcroft was a teenager, in her game-day bag.