by Our Sports Desk

England Women manager Mark Sampson held what he hopes will prove to be profitable talks with Roy Hodgson yesterday, before jetting out to the World Cup.

Sampson took a mass of acquired knowledge with him to Canada as the Lionesses departed for the tournament, which begins for England with a tricky group clash against France on June 9.

Welshman Sampson, 32, has been in his post for barely 18 months and believes there are few better figures to speak to in the game than Hodgson, manager of the England men’s team since May 2012 and a man with a long and varied coaching career behind him.

“I had the pleasure of speaking to Hope Powell at the start of the regime about so many aspects of the role. But more recently it’s been about using experience within the Football Association,” Sampson said.

“We’re fortunate we’ve got people like Roy Hodgson, the senior manager, Gareth Southgate, the Under-21s manager, and we’ve even got Dave Reddin as our performance director, who’s not only got experience of a men’s football World Cup, but also a men’s rugby World Cup, an Olympic Games — you couldn’t really wish to speak to anyone more about experience of tournaments.”

Hodgson’s England team were World Cup failures last summer in Brazil, folding in the group stage.

But when asked what made the 67-year-old such a useful sounding board, Sampson said: “It’s great to speak to someone who is so clear about their principles of the game, their view of the game, and also the experiences they’ve got that they can share, and being aware of areas where sometimes maybe they’ve made mistakes, and areas where they’ve been successful, and they can share that knowledge.

“But for any given team the dynamic is different, so what works for one might not work for another, and there’s nothing to say that what worked for Hope or what worked for Jose Mourinho, or worked for Roy, is going to work for us.

“We’ve got to utilise that information and make sure we’re making the right decisions in terms of giving our players what we feel would help them the best.”

England Women have been in camp at the St George’s Park national football centre. Sampson’s target for them is to reach at least the semi-finals, further than the team have ever previously gone.

“These are exciting times,” said Sampson.

“The players have been like schoolgirls on the first day of school, coming in and not really being concerned about wanting to listen to the teacher but just concerned about when we’re going to the tournament.

“We’ve been looking forward to the tournament since we qualified and a lot of hard work has gone into making sure we are prepared, and we are ready for it.”