Two months ago, the Red Roses, England women\u2019s rugby union team, quietly walked out at the Allianz Stadium in Twickenham.<\/p>\n
It was their home World Cup squad announcement day and John Mitchell\u2019s team stepped out in public for the first time in their all-white Castore kits before a group photo on the pitch. A few cheers echoed across from staff watching from the other side of the ground on a day the largely empty stadium had been double-booked.<\/p>\n
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One corner was being used as a photo opportunity for students who had graduated from the University of West London. But barely anyone from the graduation party looked over.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, England\u2019s welcome into the same stadium for their 33-13 World Cup final win against Canada was a lot more lively and emotional. They were roared through the Rowland Hill Memorial Gates by thousands of fans wearing cowboy hats and giant roses on their heads and taking up every vantage point possible to get a glimpse of the soon-to-be crowned world champions.<\/p>\n
England were being cheered on towards the entrance and the trophy \u2013 which they lifted for a third time following victories in 1994 and 2014 \u2013 but also towards a future where women\u2019s rugby union is on the map and in a place from where there is no going back.<\/p>\n
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This team have won every game since losing the World Cup final 34-31 to hosts New Zealand in November 2022. They had won 30 games going into that final in Auckland and came into this tournament as the top-ranked side and heavy favourites to win.<\/p>\n
And that is exactly what they did \u2014 starting at Sunderland\u2019s Stadium of Light in the north-east of England last month in front of 42,723 fans against the United States, the inaugural World Cup winners in 1991, who they beat 69-7.<\/p>\n
For their final victory, the crowd almost doubled in size from that opening Pool A win. A total of 81,885 gathered, the most ever for a women\u2019s rugby match.<\/p>\n
The whole tournament has been a major success. More than 440,000 spectators attended games across England, millions watched on television and so many more connected with the personality-led content shared to social media by athletes from across the 16 teams.<\/p>\n
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England, who lifted the Six Nations title for a seventh consecutive year in April, have now won 61 of their past 62 matches \u2014 marking them as arguably the greatest women\u2019s international rugby union team of all-time. Captain Zoe Aldcroft said it does feel as if they are the best ever after this latest and historic win. In her Scarborough accent, with the golden trophy perched in front of her, she called it a \u201ccherry on top of the cake\u201d moment.<\/p>\n
It is no coincidence England have only lost two games since the start of 2019, when the Rugby Football Union, the sport\u2019s governing body in England, introduced full-time contracts for national team players. No international women\u2019s rugby union team can match what England are doing on the pitch or off it. The country is also home to Premiership Women\u2019s Rugby (PWR), a nine-team semi-professional league which is the most competitive domestic league in the world.<\/p>\n
Runners-up Canada, who are the second-best ranked team and selected 16 PWR players for their 32-player World Cup squad, have not enjoyed the same resources as England. Nobody has.<\/p>\n
On top of the funding they received from Canada Rugby, the country\u2019s governing body, and World Rugby, the sport\u2019s global governing body, the team set up a fundraiser to help them make it to what was only their second World Cup final, having lost to England at that stage of the 2014 tournament. Named \u2018Mission: Win Rugby World Cup\u2019, a million Canadian dollars (\u00a3535,000; $717,000 at current exchange rates) was donated to help the team follow a \u201cworld-class plan for training and competition\u201d.<\/p>\n
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Sophie de Goede, named World Rugby player of the year after this game, gave Canada something to celebrate on the pitch. When she returned to her team-mates, she disappeared into a sea of red and only emerged when she was repeatedly thrown up into the air with her personal trophy. After the game, she called for more financial backing into their women\u2019s team so that over the next four years they can build towards avenging this defeat in Australia in 2029.<\/p>\n
Asked whether there is a danger England could pull further in front if other nations do not back their women\u2019s teams in the same way, De Goede said: \u201cThe RFU does a really good job of supporting their women\u2019s programme. They\u2019re leading in this space and if we look at the rugby game today, England fully deserved the win regardless of how much investment (they have).<\/p>\n
\u201cWe could have won that game today and we just didn\u2019t put it out on the field. That\u2019s the big takeaway for me: how can we improve on the field? But on the Canadian side, more investment will only help us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mitchell, who has been England coach since late 2023, said he owes a lot to the pathway which has been created by the PWR, where all 32 of his World Cup winners played last season. He said the win would not be possible without that infrastructure and he hopes it will give him even more of a selection headache moving forward, with even more girls taking up the sport after being inspired by yesterday\u2019s scenes in south-west London.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe can dominate the world for a long time but the world is going to get better because people are starting to recognise how to resource their programmes,\u201d the New Zealander, who previously worked as a defence coach for England\u2019s men, said. \u201cThis is just the start. What an unbelievable atmosphere and if this is the start, look at what the future is going to look like.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ellie Kildunne, one of the team\u2019s most popular players, turned up in the mixed zone wearing a rhinestone-encrusted cowboy hat with her name on and had a pink can of alcohol taken away by a press officer.<\/p>\n
Kildunne, who plays at fullback and is known for her speedy, slaloming runs through the pitch, settled England\u2019s nerves after scoring one of her trademark tries in the eighth minute to cancel out Asia Hogan-Rochester\u2019s fifth-minute opener for Canada. After Zoe Harrison converted the subsequent kick, England led 7-5 and, despite pressure from Canada, who had the country\u2019s Prime Minister Mark Carney watching on, England did not look back, scoring five times in total.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember at the last World Cup thinking \u2018If we win, this is going to be a thing that changes the sport\u2019,\u201d Kildunne said. \u201cBefore this game today we\u2019d already changed the sport and I think that was the biggest difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Kildunne said now that the team have sold out Twickenham, the challenge will be to keep on doing that and to \u201ckeep on getting better, bigger and louder\u201d.<\/p>\n