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Maggie Alphonsi on 2010 home World Cup final: 'It still sits with me that loss'
By Lucy Lomax
As the Rugby World Cup 2025 final approaches, England, the number one side in the world for the best past of five years, will have had the 27th September circled in red marker since the fixtures were announced back in October last year. Actually, let’s be more accurate, they would have had the date circled since the heart breaking loss to New Zealand back in November 2022.
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With competing in high level sport comes the inevitable highs, plus the excruciating lows. The 34-31 final loss to the Black Ferns at Eden Park, after playing with 14 for the majority of the match must have been painful to take.
Two players who have both won and lost World Cup finals for England are Maggie Alphonsi and Kat Merchant. Both retired after 2014 as world champions, their final game of rugby being the act of winning the World Cup- does it get much better?
But the pair are honest enough to point out their journeys along the way had many low points, with Alphonsi losing the 2006 and 2010 World Cup finals before bringing the trophy home in 2014.
Alphonsi remembers almost 20 years ago and how the England team felt after losing the 2006 final to New Zealand in Canada.
“2006 was my first World Cup. It was against a New Zealand team that everyone felt should always win because they were that good,” said the 74-time capped flanker.
“So, you know, it did suck losing, but you felt like you were abroad and the pain slowly subsided when you got on the plane to come home. We were in Canada but there was only a handful of English fans in the crowd in a big stadium.
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“It was barely a quarter full but it was still a special occasion to be there and to have that moment, but to lose was hard because it just felt like you lost and no one knew about it and it was quite insignificant and you just go back to your day job.
“Women’s rugby wasn’t that popular back then. And no one probably knew that we were even out at a World Cup, but then 2010 was different because the attention on women’s sport was starting to grow.”
In 2010, the team felt they had learnt from the pain of 2006, had more experienced players, were fitter and with home support on their side- it was theirs to lose.
The World Cup final loss at the Twickenham Stoop in front of 13,253 home fans was something that has stuck with the legendary back row.
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“This tournament, it was at home. That’s one of the big things I say about this World Cup. The pain of losing in your home country, in front of the people who have backed you along the way, that was painful. And I’d probably say that it still sits with me that loss.
“In 2010 from what I remember we were fit and they (New Zealand) were also pretty fit, but what we lacked I felt at that time was we just didn’t know how to seize the moment.
“We had the advantage at home with a huge crowd supporting us and we just didn’t know how to close out those moments or how to manage certain scenarios very well and as a result of that, against New Zealand, you can’t give them a breath.”
Alphonsi adds further context to the home World Cup loss back in 2010 and describes the belief within the team which made losing all the more painful.
“We approached 2010 by going away and doing our prep, getting fit, playing against New Zealand a few times. So in that final, I thought we were ready, I thought we had the capabilities as many of us did in that team, to beat them. We went in with huge belief.
“The score was 10-10 at one stage, but we just didn’t seize those key moments, which would have enabled us to create a gap. We just didn’t know what to do and that was a lesson in terms of dealing with pressure, making accurate decisions and all of us being leaders, because we lent too much onto one person, the captain, Catherine Spencer- it was a great lesson that you need to have more leaders on the pitch to make decisions and share those decisions.”
Merchant who scored 44 England tries on the wing, agrees with former team mate Alphonsi about the extra pain of losing on home soil.
“Losing a home World Cup is obviously something England will want to avoid at all costs. It’s awful. It’s the worst feeling, it’s worse than any heartbreak.
“It was one of the worst moments of my life because it was just the utter disbelief of the effort that you put into something, the expectation as well, because, we beat New Zealand in the lead up to that tournament, so going into it we were pretty confident we could do it and then to lose it.
“It just felt like time was running away from you. I would say that there wasn’t a single day I didn’t think about the fact we lost it.”
However, the pain was numbed when four years later England went on to play the final against Canada in France, winning 21-9.
“When we won in 2014, my first feeling, and I know a couple of others first feelings too, was relief. It was relief we didn’t lose. It wasn’t joy that we won. We just didn’t want to feel like that again. You think about every little minute that you could have done differently.”
This Saturday, England will not be up against familiar World Cup foes in New Zealand, the team that have broken English hearts so many times in this tournament, a team they have played in five finals and come off second best every time. The 2025 final will be a repeat of the team they played last time they walked away with the trophy- Canada.
After a stunning performance in the semi-finals, number two in the world Canada came out fast and firing using their impressive speed of ball and forward pack to knock the Black Ferns out of the tournament, and inflict on them only their third ever World Cup defeat.
So the old England v New Zealand rivalry will have to reignite another day, but for now, England face an in-form Canada side at a home World Cup final, with pressure on their shoulders to win in front of a home crowd, and for the first time ever, on English soil.
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