Early present for birthday girl Rebecca: Wales women’s team vs England

Posted on Feb 22, 2012 in Wales, Women's Rugby

Teenage centre Rebecca De Filippo has been handed the perfect birthday present by being named in the Wales Women’s starting line-up for Saturday’s RBS 6 Nations clash against England at Twickenham.

The youngest member of the Wales Women’s squad, the Neath Athletic centre will be celebrating her 18th birthday on Saturday when Wales take on the RBS 6 Nations title favourites.

De Filippo is the only change to the starting line-up from the side which disposed of Scotland at Cross Keys.

She comes in for Philippa Tuttiett who moves to the bench. The only other change to the match day squad sees flanker Lisa Newton replace Sian Williams as one of the replacements.

De Filippo earned her first cap last weekend when coming on as a late replacement for Tuttiett but did enough to impress Wales head coach Rhys Edwards, to earn her first start for her country on Saturday.

“The way she plays suits our game plan to be honest,” said Edwards. “She possesses great off-loading ability and can do stuff that maybe others can’t.

“She is more than capable of coping with the pressure. I suppose you could say it is a case of throwing her in the deep end to see if she can sink or swim, but we wouldn’t have picked her if we didn’t think she was good enough.”

Despite going into the match as heavy underdogs, Edwards is quietly confident of giving England a good run for their money.

“They have a big squad and have made a number of changes to their side but they can afford to do that with the strength in depth they have. However you look at it, it’s not going to be easy but if we can improve our finishing off I’m confident we can give it a really good go. If we can implement our game plan, I think we can rattle them.”

Wales Women v England

15 Rosie Fletcher

14 Charlie Murray

13 Adi Taviner

12 Rebecca De Filippo

11 Caryl James

10 Naomi Thomas

9 Amy Day

1 Caryl Thomas

2 Rhian Bowden

3 Jenny Davies

4 Vicky Owens

5 Shona Powell-Hughes

6 Sioned Harries

8 Jamie Kift

7 Rachel Taylor (Capt)

Replacements

16 Lowri Harries

17 Megan York

18 Clare Flowers

19 Lisa Newton

20 Laura Prosser

21 Mared Evans

22 Phillippa Tuttiett