FORMER Nunnery Wood High School pupil Rachel Walker has been selected to represent England at the World Cup hockey championships in Australia.

The 23-year-old midfielder will jet to the Perth event on November 16 with the tournament due to finish in December.

Walker is currently recovering from a broken nose picked up during training but is relishing the prospect of adding to her 37 caps and her first trip down under.

"I've never been to Australia before and it's somewhere I've always wanted to go," she said. "The World Cup is the biggest event in hockey and the standard of play will be very high."

Walker, and her team-mates have undergone special acclimatisation training in heat chambers by way of preparation for Perth's temperatures.

The squad has also had regular training camps at Loughborough and Bisham Abbey to ensure they are in top condition.

"We've been preparing for this for the last two years including new management coming in from Australia plus competing in a lot of major tournaments," added Walker.

The competition is split into two pools of eight teams with England ranked as one of the top six in the world.

Walker, who also attended Worcester Sixth Form College, picked up a silver medal for England in the Commonwealth Games.

Walker and the rest of the England squad have just returned from competing in the Champions Trophy in Macau, China.

The trophy pits the six best teams in the world against each other with England competing against Argentina, Australia, China, New Zealand and Holland.

Argentina triumphed in that event and have overtaken Australia as the world number one ranked team.