Its a full-time life in the England women's team

Interesting statistic (well, I find it interesting)... in the last 12 months (up to yesterday) England's women have played 14 test matches. That is more (over the same period) than the professional men's team.

Indeed, if you add in the "A" internationals - which several squad players also play in - this relatively small group of 40 or so amateur rugby players have been involved in 20 high status international games in space of a year. As well as playing for their clubs. And holding down jobs (or studying at university in some cases).

What is more (and thanks to the correspondent below for this), England have five more test matches coming up before the end of this year - two against France (no. 4 in the world), followed by three against New Zealand (no. 1). Then in the New Year its the Six Nation, followed by the European Championship (which in 2012 is a first team event - so that is another nine tests after January, or 14 in all for the season - and that is before the summer tour somewhere (if there is no Nations Cup). And then the same again in 2012-13, followed by a summer tour to New Zealand...

Add to that England's commitment to sevens. Though they have a theoretically separate sevens training squad, this was heavily augmented by main squad players for the Europeans and - if the IRB tour goes ahead (and a lot of national sevens coaches seem to be treating it as a done deal) - that will almost certainly be the case in the future (unless the England management are capable of stomaching a few developmental defeats, which they do not seem to be). So another four high intensity weekends for some players. Then in 2013 its the Sevens World Cup, followed by Olympic qualification...

Daunting stuff...