{"id":179976,"date":"2025-09-30T12:21:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T12:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/179976\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T12:21:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T12:21:09","slug":"every-world-cup-match-felt-like-a-celebration-the-breakthrough-weve-dreamed-of-womens-rugby-world-cup-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/179976\/","title":{"rendered":"Every World Cup match felt like a celebration \u2013 the breakthrough we\u2019ve dreamed of | Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

A turning point, a line in the sand, a pivotal moment<\/a>. Whatever you want to call it, this Rugby World Cup, and the final in particular<\/a>, is a point women\u2019s rugby won\u2019t be turning back from. The showpiece at a sold-out Twickenham was a moment decades in the making, a long-held dream<\/a> for so many in the sport.<\/p>\n

This summer has been unbelievable. The sight of thousands of fans in the stands, and not only for the England games, was just what the game needed. People travelled from abroad to support their nations but local communities also turned out for all 16 teams, which led Ruahei Demant, the New Zealand co-captain, to call England \u201cworld-leading\u201d in supporting women\u2019s sport. Every match also felt like a celebration of the game, whether that was down to players being applauded off their coaches, a fan at Twickenham saying \u201cwe\u2019re all community here\u201d or young supporters getting photos with their idols such as Australia\u2019s Desiree Miller.<\/p>\n

For the tournament to gain such momentum and England players such as Ellie Kildunne and Meg Jones to become household names was the kind of breakthrough many who have covered the game had hoped for, but feared might never arrive. Now that it has, there\u2019s no going back. This was women\u2019s rugby\u2019s moment.<\/p>\n

Covering the competition has been special: not just to witness history, but the access and time spent with the athletes and coaches across the tournament. From Tony Christie, the Black Ferns coach, who would introduce himself and shake hands with each person in the room before every press conference, to John Mitchell using nearly everyone\u2019s first names, and the players being so generous with their time and words. The overriding feeling was one of mutual respect.<\/p>\n

Each player has their own story and so many were open to sharing them. Jones was so moving when speaking about the grief she has for her parents<\/a> and how much she wanted to win. Another Red Rose in Alex Matthews shone a light on \u201cdoing it for the quiet ones\u201d during the week she was captain for England\u2019s match against Australia. There were genuinely touching moments, such as when Jones comforted an emotional Mitchell the day after the final as he said he couldn\u2019t wait to see his wife after the game.<\/p>\n

Outside the England camp, New Zealand\u2019s Katelyn Vaha\u2019akolo was funny yet inspiring when speaking about wanting to show there is space for people with big personalities in the sport. Canada\u2019s Julia Schell was deeply relatable in her excitement that Shania Twain had shown support for the team on social media; she shared that she had fallen over while running to tell her captain, Alex Tessier, the news. In the stands at Sandy Park, Ruby Tui, left out of the New Zealand playing squad but working as a BBC pundit, stood and performed the haka as the Black Ferns laid down their gauntlet to Japan. And who could forget Samoa\u2019s coach, Ramsey Tomokino, getting emotional when speaking about the support his team deserves?<\/p>\n

From left: England\u2019s Marlie Packer, footballer Lucy Bronze, head coach John Mitchell and former Olympic champion Kelly Holmes during the title party. Photograph: John Sibley\/Action Images\/Reuters<\/p>\n

The journey to this point has been long and arduous. Two decades ago, sitting beside my mum on the sofa watching the men\u2019s rugby, I didn\u2019t even know the women\u2019s game existed there was so little coverage. My secondary school didn\u2019t even offer contact rugby for girls.<\/p>\n

When I started covering women\u2019s rugby in 2019, the Red Roses were still playing their Six Nations games after the men had played. That meant a lot of fans left. Matthews spoke earlier in the tournament about warming up in front of a large crowd and then running out for a game to see only a few thousand remaining in their seats. For the sport to accelerate at such a pace that England are financially viable, making the Rugby Football Union a profit on game day and selling out iconic stadiums, is just breathtaking.<\/p>\n

It was only in April 2023 that the Red Roses had their first standalone Test match at Twickenham with almost 60,000 in the stands. Two years later, 81,885 roared them on to World Cup glory.<\/p>\n

England fans witness the team disembarking at Twickenham before the final. Photograph: Ryan Pierse\/RFU\/The RFU Collection\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

England\u2019s players and coaches have said arriving at the stadium blew them away. Mitchell cited the south stand \u201cspinning with people\u201d and there is a magnificent picture of the entire stand full of fans trying to get a glimpse of the players arriving.<\/p>\n

Inside the stadium, 50,000 had turned up for the kick-off of the bronze final between New Zealand and France and 60,000 were in their seats for the second half. Portia Woodman-Wickliffe was shown walking through thousands of fans on her way into the stadium saying \u201cwow\u201d after the New Zealand team had expected no one to show up for their match.<\/p>\n

The most exciting thing was the sense that this is just the start for this sport. There were a lot of references to glass ceilings being shattered but there are no ceilings for these athletes. Women\u2019s sport is finally getting the respect and audiences it deserves. The challenge for the powers that be is to try to elevate domestic success to an international level around the world. Will England\u2019s Premiership Women\u2019s Rugby, France\u2019s Elite 1 or New Zealand\u2019s Aupiki get new fans in seats to progress the sport further? That remains to be seen. Women\u2019s rugby has taken a giant leap forward over the last six weeks but, for sustainability, there may need to be more baby steps over the next World Cup cycle.<\/p>\n

The victorious England team, led by prop Sarah Bern with the trophy, storm the BBC pitchside studio. Photograph: Tom Jenkins\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

This is an extract taken from our weekly rugby union email, the Breakdown. To sign up, just visit this page<\/a> and follow the instructions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A turning point, a line in the sand, a pivotal moment. Whatever you want to call it, this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-179976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}