USA Hooker Kathryn Trener relishes Red Roses challenge ahead of 2025 Women's Rugby World Cup opener

England are on a 20-game winning run, with their last defeat coming in the last World Cup final to hosts New Zealand. Since then, they have established themselves as one of the strongest sides in the game.

However, USA’s Kathryn Trener hopes to flip the script, and will embrace the underdog mentality going into the game. The “Eagles” were relegated from WXV1 in October, having lost all three of their fixtures in that campaign, after being promoted the year before.

They will play in the Pacific Four Series, where they finished third last year beating Australia, to warm up for this year’s World Cup.

“Having played [England] in WXV1 in the fall, I think for a good little while there we put up a good fight, and I think the game slipped away from us at the end, but that tournament did teach us a lot about playing high level teams, what it’s like to play high level teams, what it takes and also in particular what it takes to beat a team like England.

“I always say it’s about the team that shows up on the day. With Loughborough Lightning, we’ve had several upsets in the second half of our season. We beat Saracens, who we’d never beaten before. That’s just a feeling in sport that I'll be chasing forever: coming out on top when nobody else expects you to. That’s the reason I keep playing. So yeah, I think that’ll be a really exciting game to watch and I think the USA will be bringing their A game for that.”

However, she hopes to not get too complacent. They have only beaten England once, in the 1991 World Cup Final. Every fixture since then has seen a, usually comprehensive, England win. The last time USA were within two scores of England at full-time was in 2011.

Trener knows the strength of England and understands the challenge at hand: “I think for me, in particular, I only focus on one game at a time, even one day at a time. I think if we think too far ahead, we’ll get too bogged down in the moment. So, I really think taking each game as it comes and really focusing on what it’ll take in the challenge that week is the approach that’ll take us as far as our potential will.”