Women’s Six Nations 2024: Captain Marlie Packer says England want to ‘let off the handbrake’ in attack

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England want to continue to “let off the handbrake” in attack during the Women’s Six Nations, says captain Marlie Packer.

The Red Roses hammered Wales at Ashton Gate in front of a crowd of 19,705 – a record for an England women’s game away from Twickenham.

John Mitchell’s side have now scored 94 points in the opening two rounds.

“We want to let off the handbrake so those errors are going to come in,” Packer told BBC Sport.

“But it is how we react to them.”

England scored eight tries in Bristol, with hooker Lark Atkin-Davies grabbing the bonus-point score before half-time.

Prior to Mitchell taking charge last autumn, the Red Roses used a forward-orientated game to reach the 2022 World Cup final.

Packer is enjoying her new head coach’s philosophy of playing with “positive intent” to help increase the speed of play.

“We knew we wanted to come out here in 20 minutes and execute our gameplan,” the 34-year-old added.

“We want to play with tempo and put an exciting brand of rugby out there on the pitch. To do that we must bring energy and play.

“We want to let the handbrake off and play. If balls do go down it is because of how we are trying to play, but hopefully it is exciting rugby.

“There were 19,000 fans here today and more on TV and we want them to keep coming back.”

Atkin-Davies’ try was the only score to come through England’s maul, which they relied on so heavily during Simon Middleton’s reign.

Full-back Ellie Kildunne grabbed two tries and winger Abby Dow dived over in the corner, in a free-flowing performance from Mitchell’s backs and forwards.

“The variety of the scoring was positive and there is still a lot more growth to come,” Mitchell told BBC Sport.

“I think we can be more urgent and continue to improve our skill-set under pressure.

“What I liked today is we had pressure for long periods of time and executed very well.

“We want to be quicker and build pressure on teams. We can do that in a number of ways.”

Mitchell confirmed versatile back Helena Rowland, who started England’s opening win over Italy in Parma, will miss the remainder of the Six Nations due to a fractured finger.

However, the 60-year-old coach was confident Atkin-Davies will be available for England’s next game against Scotland on 13 April, with the hooker to go through the mandatory head injury assessment after a knock on Saturday.

England remain on track to secure a third successive Grand Slam and a sixth successive Six Nations title.

England lead the standings after two bonus-point wins, France are one point behind in second, Scotland are third, Wales fourth, Ireland fifth and Italy sixthWatch on iPlayer bannerWatch on iPlayer footer

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