Claudia Moloney-MacDonald: ‘I’m excited to see the momentum of the World Cup’

Claudia Moloney-MacDonald has very much enjoyed riding the wave of England’s 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup win.

Now nearly a month on from a record breaking final in Twickenham 29-year-old is preparing for a new Premiership Women’s Rugby season with Exeter Chiefs.

Ask the wing which stop she enjoyed most on the way to the Red Roses claiming a third world title and the answers are almost what you expect; seeing the crowds at Allianz Stadium, the opener at the Stadium of Light or the Brighton double-header weekend.

Just what the victory will do for women’s rugby is unclear. The only parallels to be found relate to the success of the Lionesses at Euro 2022, when 129,000 more girls became involved in schools football and almost 1500 new female football teams were registered with the Football Association.

There was even a 34 per cent increase of revenue in the WSL and sponsorship boomed. Any of that sort of success could send women’s rugby stratospheric.

“There was the internal meaning about doing it for each other and doing it for this team,” Moloney-MacDonald told RugbyPass.

“From a personal achievement point of view (that) is huge – that’s what you set your eyes on when you start playing rugby.

“But there’s also a much wider perspective to that, which is, do it for the girls. The girls in the past that had to pay their way through a lot, and we’ve been coached by and had instrumental impacts on our careers – like for me, Giselle Mather.

“Then the other bit, the girls to come. The girls that haven’t picked up a rugby ball yet. What more can you want from your life than to be able to positively impact those around you?”

Already Moloney-MacDonald has seen first-hand exactly what England’s World Cup win can do. A number of players took part in community driven initiative, RugbyFest, where they took their gold medals to grassroots clubs.

Alongside Exeter teammate Maddie Feaunati the 29-year-old visited Teignmouth RFC and was asked a question she found hard to answer.

“One of the girls turned around to me and said, ‘are you going to be playing in the World Cup in four years’ time?’,” Moloney-MacDonald smiled.

“I said that I have no idea. Hopefully, but I’m also 29. Who knows? There’s so much talent coming through. Then she said, ‘I hope you are because I want to play with you’. She has set her eyes on playing at that next World Cup and I just thought that was incredible.

“I thought it was amazing to even voice that. I think with PWR now starting, that’s the next big steppingstone. I’m excited for this opening weekend and seeing how much momentum we carry from the World Cup into the season.”

This season looks primed to be the most competitive edition of PWR since the league’s first campaign eight years ago.

Not only riding on the coattails of Women’s Rugby World Cup success, on paper the squads look to be as strong as they ever have and could provide five months of non-stop drama, thrills and spills.

Eight of the league’s nine clubs have Red Roses among their ranks. There have been a number of high-profile arrivals from overseas. There has even been an array of new coaching appointments to keep things interesting at the top.

Moloney-MacDonald sees that dispersal of high-level talent – whether that be Amy Cokayne’s move to Sale Sharks or Meg Jones’ arrival at Trailfinders Women – a natural part of the competition’s development.

“I think it’s exactly what the league needs, it’s probably a natural progression of what’s happened,” Moloney-MacDonald said.

“You need finances to create the best teams and PWR has been around since 2017 and back then how many clubs had enough money to put into players? Probably not so many.

“Therefore, you end up with more concentrated groups of players at clubs. But we needed those clubs to take it by the reins and show what was possible.

“I think players from across the world are seeing how amazing this league is, coming over, playing in it and now we’ve got such a spread of incredible players across the teams with brilliant facilities and supported by great staff.

“The produce it so much better than it was in 2017. I think it improves every year. It’s so important to have a competitive league.”