LONG READ How France injected new life into women's rugby at Twickenham

With the biggest event on the global calendar due to rise across the women’s rugby horizon in only four months, England are determined not to make the same mistake again. In fact, they are determined not to make the same two mistakes again.

Wind the clock back to 12 November 2022, with England riding the wave of a 30-match unbeaten run before losing in the dying breath of the Rugby World Cup final to hosts New Zealand. If that was not enough of a heartbreaker, the England women have proceeded to win their next 25 games since – including three consecutive wins over their 2022 nemesis – and that has rubbed more salt in the wound.

But beating the Black Ferns when it really matters is only one half of the story. When England last hosted the World Cup in 2010, it was ill-prepared for the fast growth potential of the game. Only 13,000 spectators watched the final at Twickenham with England losing another nailbiter, predictably to the Black Ferns 13-10.

Thirteen years later, 58,498 fans were in attendance to watch England and France meet in a Six Nations Grand Slam decider at the old cabbage patch. Even that figure was eclipsed by the 66,000 who turned up on the opening day of the Women’s Sevens at the Paris Olympics.

That potential went unrealised at the time – much as it did after the England men’s World Cup triumph in 2003. In 2010, there were no changing sheds designed with women’s needs in mind. Now there are two professional leagues in England and New Zealand, and a promising third, the ‘Women’s Elite Rugby League’ launched in March in the lucrative US sports market. It has eight years to set a solid footprint in the sand ahead of the 2033 World Cup, to be hosted on the far side of the Atlantic.

Women’s rugby is well on the way to becoming a global professional sport. “Women’s rugby in the U.S. is a combat sport, and positions itself as ‘aggressively inclusive’ so we had to find an edge to each [franchise],” commented Flo Williams, director of women’s sport at sports marketing agency MATTA, which is responsible for the promotion of WER. As such, the marketing curve is marching in perfect step with the cultural times.

WER is bankrolled by private investment and has a full front-office staff on tap to promote the game. The 2025 Women’s World Cup will be free-to-air on the telly with the BBC, where the 2010 tournament sat behind a paywall on Sky Sports. The free-to-air Women’s Six Nations in 2024 was the most viewed on record, with 8.1m people tuning in for three minutes or more, a rise of one third compared to the year before. The eight venues chosen – London and Brighton in the Southeast; Bristol and Exeter in the West Country; Northampton in the Midlands; Manchester in the Northwest; Sunderland in the Northeast and York in Yorkshire – neatly cover off all the main demographics.

Nothing has been left to chance. Some 100,000 females are projected to be playing the game in England by 2027 under the aegis of the ‘Impact ‘25’ legacy programme. Funding began three years ago, with over US $3.8m being invested in 655 clubs nationwide, and 350 clubs having received grants to start under-12s activity by the end of 2024. Even beauty product manufacturers such as Clinique have become involved in the investment in women’s rugby, enhancing the game’s allure.

Only one month ago, World Rugby announced a massive 275,00 tickets had already been sold for the 2025 World Cup. The final itself is sold out and will set a new world record of 82,000 spectators for a women’s match.

If there is a cloud on that universally sunny horizon, it may be that England are just too dominant as a global force. The Red Roses have only lost one of their past 56 matches and that dominance is hardly likely to be diminished by a succession of games played on their home patch, in front of their own people.

Up until the very last match of the championship, the 2025 Six Nations had been a bit of a cruise. Their average margin of victory was 53-7 and they had to wait until the final round match against France to experience anything resembling persistent scoreboard pressure – even if it was of the tenacious, comeback variety. Of all the sides who have entered ‘mortal combat’ against them for six years or more, only Les Bleues and the Black Ferns have threatened to emerge from the contest alive and kicking.

How do you combat an opponent with a 98% win rate over six seasons, who are about to hold a global competition on their own turf? France gave us some of the answers. Under the watchful stewardship of ex-All Black John Mitchell, England have expanded their playing platform from the driven lineout-based outfit of his predecessor Simon Middleton. At the 2024 Six Nations, it was the Red Roses’ dual playmakers Holly Aitchison and Zoe Harrison who enjoyed the highest average pass distance [6.7m and 7.1m respectively], with Aitchison passing for the most metres [1012m].

With 20 minutes to go against France, Mitchell’s ‘new model England’ was reinforced by the BBC’s own in-game passing analysis.

Like their men in the Top 14, Les Bleues attacked mainly off nine, with Pauline Bourdon Sansus, who had the most try assists [five] in the 2024 edition of the tournament, to the fore. Then they offloaded when they had made the initial breach [top-ranked with 72 offloads in 2024].

In contrast, England played mostly off 10 or 12, and they used probably their best passing back in both directions [inside centre Tatyana Heard] to create width.

Typically, you would see a forward pod automatically set up to carry off nine after the ball has just reached the far side-line in that first clip, but the Red Roses are far more ambitious on Mitchell’s watch. They insert Heard at first receiver and make two more passes into midfield before the defence closes, and that is enough to create a mini-break.

The Gloucester-Hartpury inside centre looks for all the world like the natural successor to Emily Scarratt as England’s new midfield maestro, on the next occasion passing sweetly off the left hand to create England’s third score of the game for full-back Emma Sing.

The problems for England began on the other side of the ball, where France scored six tries. As ‘Mitch’ commented after the smoke had cleared, “I wasn’t happy with the defence. I thought they got through us too easy through the middle. We adjusted that at half-time, but the edge of the defence was not up to standard.”

Les Bleues began by attacking the Red Roses around the fringes of the ruck, between defenders one and three. When they could get arms beyond the tackle, they offloaded.

England’s forward tackling in that area was moderate and the presence of scrum-half Natasha Hunt sitting in ‘the boot’ behind the ruck hardly provided the insurance policy that might have been expected.

The wellspring of hope for other nations in four months’ time will be that when the Roses adjusted to plug the gaps on the inside at oranges, their wide defence proved just as porous when France put out feelers in the 15m-5m zones.

Two of those breaks/tries come on first phase, the first from right wing Joanna Grisez and the second from her partner on the left, Kelly Arbey. In both cases, initial defence on the edge is weak and it does not get any better in the second tier from the cover. In the final example, the final defender slips over and Grisez beats another three potential tacklers from over 50 metres out on her way to a spectacular try.

As the flying wing said afterwards: “We just stuck to what we had said: if we wanted to beat England, we had to play freely. Honestly, that big 20-minute lapse clearly cost us the match. But when we played without overthinking, we dominated — that was very clear. If it’s not today, it will be this summer. In rugby, you have to play, that’s what it’s [all] about.”

The women’s game is preparing for success in August, and whatever happens, it will extract every drop of juice from the World Cup to further its wider aims. Whether the Red Roses are there to hoist the trophy at the end is another matter. There are enough chinks in their armour to offer Les Bleues, not to mention the Black Ferns, scope for optimism. The Red Roses could be left feeling all black and blue once again.