JESS DO IT! England and Saracens superstar Jess Breach speaks!

There aren’t many better than Jess Breach, and Helen M Jerome was lucky enough to have an exclusive chat with the Saracens and Red Roses superstar as the PWR season kicks off.

Jess Breach is in the sweet spot in her career. Back to full fitness, with a World Cup winners’ medal round her neck and plunging fully into the new PWR season with her beloved Saracens.

But if you thought she might be resting on her laurels after a glorious September and signing a new contract, well, think again.

Breach has strong views on teamwork, the importance of fans across the league, and how toxic it can be for players who set themselves targets. She’s also honest about the challenge and bump of coming down to earth after finally achieving England’s goal of winning the Rugby World Cup on home soil, along with her podcast pal and Harlequins rival, Ellie Kildunne (above, left).

One person who is always in her corner is her Saracens head coach, Alex Austerberry, who has know Breach since started out at Pulborough rugby club, aged 14. He calls her a game changer.

“She gets people on the edge of their seats; she gets the crowd going, and for us she’s pivotal in what we want to do.” And these magic moments don’t come from nowhere, says Austerberry. “She works incredibly hard off the ball in game and incredibly hard behind the scenes to make sure she’s the player that she is.”

So it was a bit of a treat to sit down with Jess Breach straight after she’d committed her future to Saracens.

Jess, it was a huge statement of you to recommit. Obviously, you knew this for a while, but I’m presuming you had other offers. So what made you decide to stay on at StoneX?

I think a World Cup campaign to then move clubs is quite tricky and I feel really settled at Sarries.

I’ve played probably some of the best rugby I’ve played throughout my career here, and I think last season I didn’t really put any value in the Sarries shirt, being injured quite a lot

I want to give back this season, coming off the World Cup, and perform really well for them and hopefully put us in a best position to be able to actually lift the trophy this year.

Are you one of those players who sets yourselves targets, of certain things, maybe numbers of tries?

No! Tries, definitely not! I think that’s really quite toxic behaviour.

You can get quite caught up in that. And when I was younger, I definitely did.

Nowadays, I think if I don’t score a try within a game, it doesn’t mean that I’ve had a bad game.

I might have really performed defensively or assisted three tries and that’s good enough for me.

I think it’s about an all-round game.

That’s where I want to go forward, is not thinking about that. This period is really tricky for a lot of us internationals who have just come off the World Cup.

It was our dream and our end target to lift the trophy. And now we just have to really reevaluate what we want from this season as individuals and obviously as a team.

How does it feel, coming back from the World Cup, and seeing your England teammates like Zoe Harrison, Rosie Galligan (above), Marlie Packer, Kelsey Clifford and May Campbell. Do you get a Red Roses glow from seeing all of them?

Yeah, it’s nice. We obviously spent something crazy, like 19, 18 weeks together.

So you do have that bit of sisterhood. I spent nearly every night with Zoe Harrison; we shared a room for that whole campaign.

You know, it is weird going from seeing each other every day to then not.

So it’s really nice to come back into club and see their familiar faces.

Zoe is probably a massive part of why I have re-signed here at Sarries. We have a really incredible bond on and off the pitch, and she helps me play the best of my rugby. And I think vice versa.

It’s nice to see everyone’s faces and to see what other people have been up to in our time off as well.

What does it mean to Saracens to get Sophie De Goede back after facing her in the final?

All the Canadians and the re-signings and the new signings have been incredible.

There’s a lot of girls even that played in the cup that I’d never met before because they’d signed, and I think they’ve done a fantastic job.

To have Sophie back is amazing, the current world player of the year, you can’t not want her in your team. And we did miss her last season.

It’s really crucial that she takes her form from the World Cup into Sarries, which I’m sure she will.

She’s a very dedicated athlete.

And she’s had Alex [Sarries head coach, also with Canada] for the whole of the World Cup campaign, so I’m sure they’ve got an even greater bond now, which is exciting.

I was wondering, because I asked Alex what was missing that could take you that one step further with the league. And I was wondering if it was Sophie?

I don’t think it’s an individual that could have won us that game.

I think as a collective we weren’t very good in the second half.

And maybe a bit of Sophie magic might have helped that. But she’s one element of a 23 if we had her in that squad.

And in the second half we weren’t at our best. The game got away from us and Gloucester were the better team in the end.

It’s quite savage to say that one person can win a game. I think no-one can, you’re in a team sport. There’s no ‘I’ in team!

Like I said, Sophie’s a fantastic player, and we’ve got her back now. So let’s see what she can do for the rest of the season for Sarries.

You mentioned seeing a lot of the new players playing in the cup and are there any ones in particular you look forward to playing alongside?

Jodie [Verghese] in the second row has been fantastic in the cup. I think she came from Loughborough. Yeah, she really stood out to me, really physical, a great line-out option.

Then I think in the backs, Deborah Fleming [Wills] has come back into really good form from ACL injuries. And she’s been scoring tries left, right and centre.

So, from a person who is quite young, maybe early stages of their career, and then someone who’s at their latter stage, I think it just shows that when you come into this team at Sarries, everyone’s equal and everyone wants to get pushed into the best form they can.

We talk a lot about the World Cup buzz, the vibe. Maybe that’s extra strong coffee you’ve got there, but it feels like that’s what the World Cup has done for women’s rugby.

I wonder if you could tell people who loved watching the World Cup why they should come and watch Saracens.

I think if you loved the World Cup, you should watch any team that’s in the PWR.

Obviously I’d want you to come and watch Sarries, I want Sarries to fill out, but I think as long as you’re watching women’s rugby, it shouldn’t matter.

We want to grow the sport as a whole. We don’t want one team to have 10,000 fans and then no-one else to have any.

We want the game to grow in every part of the country.

So I think if you enjoyed it, you get to see world-class players every weekend.

And you get to see us a bit closer, a bit more natural in our natural habitat.

I think at internationals there are a lot of fans. And throughout like the league, the cup, the Prem teams, you can have a bit more of a connection, which I think is really nice.

Last question: what do you enjoy most about playing rugby?

That’s a really good question. I don’t have an answer for you, off the top of my tongue.

Then what do you look forward to most?

I look forward to that I don’t have to sit at a desk and type at a laptop!

I get to be outside all day and spend most of my hours with some of my best friends. I get to travel the world and explore new places and learn new skills and stay active.

I just enjoy playing rugby. It facilitates my life; it makes me a better person. It keeps me really active and somehow I’m really good at it.