“We’ve demonstrated over the last three years that we can play any particular way,” he said.
“If you look at the conditions that we were exposed to last weekend, it’d be pretty stupid of us to not use that strength and go route one.”
Mitchell, a former head coach of the All Blacks, added: “If the weather’s going to continue that way then we’ll still be building pressure in that area.
“But we do have the ability to play any particular way. Who knows which way we’ll go?”
Hannah Botterman, who has been restored to England’s front row for the semifinal in Bristol after recovering from a back spasm, stressed the importance of set-pieces.
“If we do our job in the scrum, line-out, maul, then the backs understand that that gives them the best platform to play off,” she said.
Botterman’s selection is one of four changes to the team that overpowered Scotland, with fullback Ellie Kildunne, first five-eighths Zoe Harrison and lock Abbie Ward all in the starting XV.
The return of Kildunne, the current world player of the year, who missed the quarter-final after suffering concussion, is a major boost.
“Ellie’s intuitive and can break a game. She’s not a person you hold to structure,” said Mitchell.
“That stride of hers, when she gets into a one-on-one or creates a half a metre of space, she’s very difficult to handle.”
