The fly-half will line up for England against USA at Allianz Park on Friday in a sport unrecognisable from 11 years ago

For Katy Daley-Mclean the wheel really has turned the full circle. Eleven years ago England’s fly-half made her first international appearance against Scotland in St Albans, coming off the bench where she had been sitting with another player about to make her debut, Sarah Hunter, her friend since they met as aspiring 14-year-old rugby league players at Gateshead Thunder.

On Friday night Daley-McLean will be the first England player on the pitch at Allianz Park, where she will join the exclusive club of women who have won 100 caps for the Red Roses. Hunter, the England squad captain who will be on the bench again, has already beaten her teammate to 100 caps, a club that includes Rochelle Clark, Amy Garnett and Tamara Taylor.

The world of women’s rugby is unrecognisable from the day Daley-Mclean and Hunter made their international bows. In 2007 the game was at the Old Albanians ground that is the weekday base for Saracens’ men. England play the USA in the first of a series of games that includes meetings with Canada and Ireland, at the ground where the English champions host their matches – in front of a live Sky TV audience.

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“I remember that first cap. I was on the bench with Sarah and when I finally got on the field we scored a try in the corner. I was now fly-half and kicker and my first act in international rugby was to try to convert a kick from the touchline. I remember thinking I must at least get the ball off the ground and not make a fool of myself. Luckily I hit it sweetly and it actually sailed through the posts. I can’t tell you how relieved I was.

“The women’s game has changed massively. There were a couple of hundred watching that day and most of them were friends and family. In those days you would rock up for a game on a Friday night, play the game on Saturday and depart on a Sunday, not knowing if and when you would get together again.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest England’s Katy Daley-Mclean makes a break during the Women’s Rugby World Cup match against Spain in August 2017. Photograph: David Rogers/Getty Images

Daley-Mclean received an MBE after leading England to victory in the 2014 World Cup in France. At 32 the former primary school teacher, who has scored 462 more points since that touchline conversion in a 60‑0 win, has no plans to stop playing. England are handing out professional contracts to 15-a-side players next year and Daley-Mclean and her Loughborough Lightning clubmate Hunter will be somewhere near the head of the queue.

“These games are another chance for us to put up our hands for those contracts and I still want to be in the mix,” she says. “I’m still really enjoying the game. It’s pretty cool to have 100 caps. I just hope it’ll go better than my 50th cap. We played New Zealand at Esher and I had a bad day at the office, really dreadful. I got caught up in the emotion of the occasion and didn’t to the basics right.

“I’ll go out against the Americans to try to do a job. They’re a physical side, we’ve got some new caps and we’ll be taking nothing for granted.”

England’s coach, Simon Middleton, is full of admiration for his No 10. “Katy is one of the greatest women’s players ever. She has everything. She’s a natural leader and an inspiration,” he says.

Middleton has named a new centre pairing in Tatyana Heard and Carys Williams. The Saracens loosehead prop Ellena Perry and Firwood Waterloo No 8 Sarah Beckett are the other new caps. England are led by the Harlequins lock Abbie Scott.

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The Americans know they will be in for a long night. They were beaten 67-6 by New Zealand in Chicago last weekend and it is difficult not to see this new-look England side celebrating Daley-Mclean’s century with a handsome victory.

“The USA will be hardened and wiser for last weekend. We expect a tough game,” Middleton says.