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Charli Jacoby: 'We're here chasing outcomes. Chasing wins'
By Joe Harvey
Even just one week into the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup it feels as though Charli Jacoby has been everywhere this tournament.
The 35-year-old tighthead prop has become part of a three-headed social media monster alongside USA Women’s Eagles teammates Ilona Maher and Georgie Perris-Redding.
Since the trio linked up earlier this year for their national side, they have combined for millions of views and likes on social media.
From just showing off their day-to-day activities, behind the scenes at training camp or their personalities, already it has become an early highlight of the whole competition.
“Ilona’s funny and she’s got a good personality,” Jacoby grinned when asked about the foundation of their relationship.
“She likes to laugh, and she likes to eat and she likes to talk. Check. Check. And check. Those are three things that Georgie and I like to do too.
“It was just an easy organic relationship, and we have a lot of fun together and belly laugh together. It’s been a good time.
“I think with Ilona, she’s just confident in the message she wants to put out.
“We all have those similar thoughts and feelings, but through her she’s definitely motivated and encouraged us to get our messages out there too.”
Jacoby does not deny that Maher has spearheaded her team’s desire to jump wholeheartedly into content creation.
But there is another, more tertiary, reason for it. Fun.
“We’re here chasing outcomes, we’re here chasing wins, but in the meantime when we’re not playing rugby and beating each other up every day, we have to do things to fill up our cups, enjoy our time and we do enjoy each other’s company,” Jacoby said.
“Right now, we’re loving making silly videos and just exploring England. Ilona is in the squad and she’s definitely our content creator. She’s bringing us all along with her. It’s been super fun.
“We were in Emmitsburg, Maryland, for however long and the only thing to do was go to Dunkin’ Donuts and Walmart. So making silly videos in our van was the highlight of our day. It’s been fun.
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“We’re a tight knit group. We always have been and I do think you can see that from what we put out there.”
Last Friday night the Eagles played England in the opening game of this year’s World Cup.
In front of a Women’s Rugby World Cup attendance record of 42,723 people at the Stadium of Light, Ellie Kildunne reminded everyone of why she was the reigning World Rugby Women’s 15s Player of the Year with an effervescent performance as the Red Roses ran out 69-7 winners.
Even after a disappointing day for the Eagles, the side have been able to see the positives from such a showpiece event.
Maher, perhaps unsurprisingly put it perfectly in a social media post where she referenced her disappointment in the result, but her pride in playing at a game where ‘42,000 fans bought tickets, plus millions more tuned in to watch women’s rugby’.
At full-time Jacoby followed her teammates around the perimeter of the stadium, interacted with the thousands of supporters who had come to Wearside to be part of an historic night for women’s rugby and even signed hotdog costumes worn by the vast number of American supporters to the fixture.
There is a familiarity to England for Jacoby after three years playing for Loughborough Lightning and Exeter Chiefs in Premiership Women’s Rugby. That experience is shared with numerous other members of Sione Fukofuka’s squad have spent time overseas to benefit their rugby.
As such, there is a stark contrast to the last World Cup, several thousand more miles from home, and made last Friday’s fixture a little more special.
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“When we went to New Zealand (for the 2021 Rugby World Cup) it just felt so far away from home,” Jacoby said.
“And when we were there, it just felt so different. With this one being in England, I’ve played three seasons in the PWR – it’s a little bit more comfy.
“It definitely feels a bit more comforting because we’re not so far away from home and we’ve got so many more American fans here. To run out in front of 42,000 people, it was insane.
“The English girls had probably experienced something close to that before from playing at Twickenham, but for us running out in front of 42,000 people, with the sire, these big flags, people screaming, it will be hard to forget. Something I will carry with me forever.”
Now in York for the next fortnight to take on Australia and Samoa in their final Pool A games, Jacoby and her teammates have already begun immersing themselves in the culture of a new city.
Jacoby has begun work on convincing members of the squad to join her on a trip to the city’s Viking experience, Jorvik, while the Shambles’ 14th century cobbles have already been pounded and the minster may not be far behind.
Now some days removed from that heavy loss to the Red Roses, attentions have now turned to Australia.
Teammates with five of Jo Yapp’s Wallaroos courtesy of a time spent playing for the Queensland Reds in Super Rugby Women’s, the 35-year-old has a notion of just what to expect at York Community Stadium on Saturday evening.
While the Australians racked up an impressive 73-0 win over Samoa in their own tournament opener, Jacoby insists that there is more to come from the Eagles.
“The vibe’s actually pretty good,” Jacoby said. “We didn’t get the result we wanted, but when you look at the stats of that game, we did really well.
“In reality, we’re in tenth place in the world right now, they’re in first place. It was always going to be a hard game. Personally, I’m pretty proud of the team.
“We did a lot of things that we had been practicing throughout the week and we showed that we can compete with the best teams in the world.
“Now moving forward into Australia, I think that if we can maintain that physicality, that intensity and that hunger, we’ll put ourselves in a really good place.”
Erica Jarrell-Searcy soared on the Stadium of Light turf on Friday night, as did the likes of Maher and Rachel Johnson enjoyed solid performances.
If it were not for error count, it could have been a different story. With over a week to fine tune their approach and harnessing all the positives that they can from a tough evening in the north east.
Still with an aim of at least making it to a quarter-final, Saturday’s clash is already must-win. Australia have proven to be a difficult opponent, with each side having won two games apiece from their past four meetings.
Victory for the Wallaroos will send them through to the knockouts. It would also extinguish any hopes the Eagles have of taking part in the last eight.
“We had amazing moments,” Jacoby said. “We built phases and then we had an handling error that they scored off first phase.
“We’ve been focussing on how we can minimise those errors, because we’re building five phases each time and when we get into the 22m we have a pretty good conversion rate.
“We just need to know how to create momentum. We need to do it. We need to figure out how we can continue to build off it and not, when someone does something really awesome, continue that and not make a silly error.”