Women’s rugby crashes into mainstream as England go for glory in World Cup final

Over the past month women’s rugby has crashed into the mainstream with all the ferocity of a prop forward burrowing across the gain line. And on the day of a compelling Women’s Rugby World Cup final, it shows no sign of slowing down.

A crowd of 82,000 will watch England face Canada at the Allianz Stadium, Twickenham, a world record for a standalone women’s match. While organisers have always been bullish, they admit that a tournament that has upended stereotypes and attracted legions of new fans has surprised even them.

“I’ve never seen a sport rise so quickly,” said Sarah Massey, the managing director of the Women’s Rugby World Cup, whose career stretches across international hockey, cricket, athletics and the Commonwealth Games. “Everyone has just got swept up in the magic of what this tournament has brought, on and off the pitch.”

Massey sensed something special was in the air at the welcome ceremonies when players sang, danced and opened their hearts. “I was in Manchester when the Australian captain [Siokapesi Palu] was talking about what this meant to the people back home, and the women and girls in her country,” said Massey. “And she – and everyone else – was in tears.”

England’s opening match against the USA in front of 42,723 fans further lit the touchpaper, and the compound interest in the tournament has multiplied with every passing week.

While a peak audience of 3.3 million watched the Red Roses beat France in the semi-finals – a record for women’s rugby in the UK – insiders expect that figure to be obliterated as England aim to win their first Women’s World Cup since 2014.

England start as favourites and with good reason: they are the world’s No 1 team, unbeaten in 32 matches and fully professional. Yet so far they have looked like a high-end performance car that seems stuck in fourth gear. Against Canada, the world’s second-best team, that will have to change.

Several of the Canadian squad are amateurs and they had to raise more than £500,000 from crowdfunding to prepare for the tournament but should not be underestimated. They have played the most exciting rugby in the tournament and, in Sophie de Goede, they arguably have the world’s best player.

Whatever happens on the pitch, everyone agrees that women’s rugby has been transformed beyond recognition over the past five years. So what changed? Alex Teasdale, the RFU’s director of the women’s game, cites a “field of dreams” moment in 2020 that propelled England’s governing body to do more.

“During Covid we had a women’s strategy meeting where we said to ourselves, if we really want to move forward we’ve got to really think big,” said Teasdale. “So we put two north stars in place: to get to 100,000 female participants – we currently have 60,000 – and to fill the Allianz Stadium for a Red Roses match.

“At that point, we’d just filled Doncaster, which has a capacity of 5,000, for our Six Nations game against Ireland. We had no idea how we were going to go about filling the Allianz stadium. But we said to ourselves: build it and they will come.”

That certainly turned out to be prophetic, with the RFU then bidding for the World Cup and setting the wheels in motion. “After that meeting we set up something we called Project 80,” she adds. “It was a terrible name, but it stuck. And it had a lot of simple principles in it. We would bid for the World Cup, grow our databases and do more to engage with fans.”

The RFU now invests £15m a year in the women’s game, a figure that has tripled since 2021. The Red Roses’ success has led to them having their first standalone sponsors in Crew Clothing, LG and Clinique.

Meanwhile, for this Women’s Rugby World Cup, organisers have deliberately targeted family-friendly audiences with cheap tickets and plenty of games during the day.

“We have also had plenty of small touches that don’t necessarily cost loads of money, but are really impactful,” said Massey. “Things like having buggy parks, baby change areas, period products in changing rooms and more female toilets so there are not as many long queues.

“We have also had sensory rings and sensory bags for kids, while all our volunteers were trained to make sure that everybody felt that they belonged and that it was really inclusive.”

Before the tournament, organisers also promised that this Women’s Rugby World Cup would lead to societal change. They have proven to be as good as their word.

The vast majority of security advisers have been women, as have the volunteers. The pitch for the final has also been prepared for by an all-female grounds team.

Content creators have been embedded with each team. This has led to more than 53m social media impressions, according to World Rugby, more than the men’s tournament in 2019.

In essence it has been a one-month long advert for This Girl Can, the campaign aimed to help women get active. “This tournament has made sure that every woman and girl knows that they can be anything, do anything, and belong anywhere in rugby, in sport, and in society,” said Massey.

Many sporting mega-events, including the London 2012 Olympics, have left a complicated legacy but Massey is convinced the Women’s World Cup will be different.

“People will think: ‘Yes, it was a brilliant tournament, but Sunday will come and everything will finish,” she said. “But will it? We have built something that is driving societal change, that people want to see, and people love seeing. So it’s not just going to be something that finishes on Saturday night. I’m very convinced the growth of women’s rugby will carry on across the world.”

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