ENGLAND women’s under-20s prop Lauren Leatherland felt winning her first cap was “unreal”.

Leatherland, 20, made her debut as a substitute in the Roses’ 31-12 defeat to France in Strasbourg.

Former All Saints and Thomas Hardye pupil Leatherland, a current University of Worcester student, admitted her recollection of her maiden cap was going into “game mode”.

She told Echosport: “I wasn’t initially in the squad in September, so when I saw the teamsheet I was quite shocked.

“When we first went out to do the national anthem I was a bit like ‘this is so unreal’, something you don’t expect to be doing.

“But once we got into the game I was just in game mode and concentrating on my jobs and what I had to do.”

Despite a solid performance against France, Leatherland is not in the England squad of 23 for today’s return fixture against Les Bleus in Newbury (2.30pm).

Leatherland, a regular fixture for club side Worcester Valkyries, admitted the opening two seasons with the Midlands side had been testing.

She said: “It’s been quite a difficult last two seasons, but for the last two weeks we’ve really been concentrating on the last two games of the season next week and the following week.

“Hopefully we can put out a good performance for those. We haven’t won a game yet, it’s a new setup in the Tyrells Premiership.

“We’re quite a young team and a lot of us are university students. We’ve had some more players who have had international experience come into the squad and some come back from injury which has really brought depth into the squad.

“There’s quite a lot of support for university rugby and the Valkyries.”

Leatherland admitted she had received plenty of well wishes from family in Dorset and from former netball team New Body Fitness, for whom she turned out in the South and West Dorset League.

“All of my friends and family were like ‘that’s awesome!’ and I’ve had a lot of support from the netball league I used to play in as well, they sent me a congrats.”

Leatherland added that her time at Worcester had helped her “develop as a player due to the access to the coaching and playing with an against internationals.”