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

Media are invited to attend the opening 10mins of Friday’s training session beginning at 10am at the National Centre of Excellence. Please contact Graeme Gillespie via email on ggillespie@wru.co.uk or tel 07740 612790 to confirm attendance or for any other press enquiries.

ENDS