Arriving at Sale Sharks as a part of a high-profile revamp, Holly Aitchison has made one large transfer this summer season.
She is adamant she will not be making a second.
“[England head coach] John Mitchell has made it fairly clear to me that I can cowl totally different positions, however I’m a ten,” she advised BBC Sport.
“And I will not be seen as anything.”
A 12 months in the past, the query would not have been requested.
At WXV in Canada, Aitchison was the Crimson Roses’ beginning fly-half, steering them to title-clinching victories over New Zealand and Canada.
Her playmaking and working skills have been a key a part of diversifying England’s menace, making certain that, come the Rugby World Cup in England, they might have extra chopping edges than a bandsaw.
It did not prove like that.
Zoe Harrison edged in entrance as first-choice 10, with Aitchison shifted into the centres or on to the bench.
An ankle harm within the run-up to the Rugby World Cup meant Aitchison struggled to problem for her spot, solely showing within the knock-out phases after which being deployed as a midfield alternative within the semi-final and ultimate victories over France and Canada respectively.
However the 28-year-old is resolute in sticking to her place and her philosophy.
“I wish to dictate,” she mentioned.
“Clearly I acquired that ankle harm earlier than the World Cup, however we have been positively transferring within the extra expansive course.
“That is one thing that I champion, that is what I carry as a ten.
“I wish to encourage the backline, I wish to play this model of rugby that draws viewers.
“Within the males’s sport, I consider gamers like Finn Russell – you purchase a ticket to look at him.
“I need that form of hype round gamers within the girls’s sport the place we’re creating that type of brand name that folks wish to watch.”
At Sale, she hopes she has discovered the stage to do this.
The crew completed final in PWR final season, however they’ve invested and improved.
Aitchison’s England team-mate Amy Cokayne and Scotland wing Rhona Lloyd have been additionally signed over the summer season whereas England’s Morweena Talling and america’ all-action lock Erica Jarrell-Searcy are a part of an thrilling again 5 within the pack.
Sale co-owner Michelle Orange had earmarked this season, after the Rugby World Cup, as an opportunity to lure a few of England’s gamers again to the north and strengthen a struggling crew.
Aitchison, born and raised on Merseyside, was a prime goal.
“Holly was on my hit-list, not simply as a poster woman for the Crimson Roses, however for the North West and girls’s rugby on the whole,” Orange tells BBC Sport.
“She is an ideal match coming in. We’re so fortunate to have Katy Daley-Mclean – considered one of England’s greatest ever fly-halves – heading up our girls’s programme and Holly follows in her mould.
“I like Holly’s type, her sass, the best way she places herself out on social media and identifies along with her fanbase, that is precisely who we would like in our crew to carry some further X-factor and complement the ladies we already have.”
