By Charlie Elliott
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England‘s U20 women’s side head to France to play a friendly against the senior South Africa women’s team this weekend, ahead of the Six Nations Summer Series.
The aim of the game is also to examine how the pathway is preparing the next generation of stars ahead of the 2025 World Cup.
With this being an exciting year for women’s rugby, the game should serve as a reminder of the talent that could play for the Red Roses in the not-so-distant future.
One of the most exciting players involved is Bristol Bears winger Millie David, who spoke to The Rugby Paper to preview the game and speak about her career so far.
She was involved in the pre-Six Nations training camp for the Red Roses ahead of the 2025 Six Nations, so she has a wealth of experience relative to her age.
Meteoric Rise
Bears winger David has had a meteoric rise in the past few years and was the joint top try scorer in the PWR last season, with 17 to her name, an impressive achievement especially considering that she is only 19 years old.
She spoke about what she believes she will add to the team based on her performances and learnings from this season.
“I think just encouragement. Obviously, I’ve had a little bit more experience of Prem rugby, so in terms of game understanding, engagement, management, from that point of view, I can sort of help them with, but mostly I think it is just confidence.
“The amount that my confidence has grown from last year to this year is massive. I don’t think I just suddenly could run fast, it was just getting used to the environment and growing as a person as well as a player.”
South Africa Test
Looking ahead to the South Africa game, she admitted that she had little knowledge of the upcoming opposition aside from playing against a few in the PWR but expected them to be physical and provide a good experience of the level required to play Test rugby.
When asked about what she hopes to learn from the game, David said:
“We are just going to have to front up in terms of the physical side of things, because if we don’t, then they are just going to run over us, because they are going to be big, they are going to be strong.
“If we’re asleep at any point, we will very quickly realise that we need to wake up in order to front up to them. And I think that will just help us going into the Six Nations, because we’ll then be very ready, because we’ve had that much of a challenge beforehand.”
Currently coming up to the end of her second year of university, where she studies maths, she talked about a few of the things she transfers from her degree onto the rugby pitch.
“With maths, you have a formula that, if you apply that, you’ll get the right answer. And I think with not just rugby, but sport in general, if you do all the 1%, like the nutrition, the sleep, all of that stuff, you’ll then get good results.
“Definitely my way of thinking, in that sense, I think does help me in rugby.”
Ilona Maher
Playing in the same team and position as Ilona Maher for the past few months means that she has been able to learn from one of the best players in the world.
Speaking on her learnings from Maher, David said:
“It was such a crazy experience, obviously, she’s got so much exposure, and not every team had that opportunity to experience that.
“She was just great to be around. She’s a really great rugby player, but her energy and her personality as well brought a lot of enjoyment and energy to the rest of the team.
“From a rugby point of view, she was in my position, so we naturally were in competition.
“My strengths are my speed and stuff like that, but her strength in contact and her physicality is something that I’ve definitely tried to incorporate into my game a bit more as well.”
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