{"id":84766,"date":"2025-08-22T10:18:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T10:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/84766\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T10:18:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T10:18:07","slug":"womens-rugby-world-cup-how-england-2025-will-mark-a-breakthrough-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/84766\/","title":{"rendered":"Women’s Rugby World Cup: How England 2025 will mark a breakthrough moment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Horrox says England 2025 is a chance to consolidate a burgeoning game and propel women’s rugby to new levels, before future World Cups in Australia in 2029 and the United States in 2033.<\/p>\n

“The time is certainly now,” she added. “The time is now for women’s rugby, for women’s sport. We are part of a broader, social and sporting movement and are proud to be so, but I think this event will re-engineer the future of rugby.<\/p>\n

“It is hugely important that we make the most of this opportunity in front of us now over the next six weeks.”<\/p>\n

The hype might stick in the throat for some.<\/p>\n

While hosts and favourites England are reaping the rewards of heavy investment in their women’s programme, Scotland’s preparations have been hampered by a contract dispute between their players and union.<\/a><\/p>\n

Wales went through similar last summer,<\/a> in the aftermath of a sexism scandal at the Welsh Rugby Union<\/p>\n

Plenty of nations are on even slimmer finances and some lop-sided scorelines between professionals and amateurs are guaranteed.<\/p>\n

There is still work to be done off the pitch.<\/p>\n

While the proportion of women in the various coaching set-ups has doubled since the last Rugby World Cup, only three of the 16 nations are led by women.<\/p>\n

One of those \u2013 France’s Gaelle Mignot \u2013 is part of a co-head coach arrangement as well.<\/p>\n

But, overall, the arc of the tournament’s history bends towards a better place.<\/p>\n

When England took part in their welcome ceremony in Sunderland last Saturday, they carried a little reminder of that fact.<\/p>\n

Inside the lining of their jackets, at their backs, in small red text, was the name of every Red Rose that had gone before and endured a less equitable, lower-profile game.<\/p>\n

Sue Day, Red Rose number 73, was among them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Horrox says England 2025 is a chance to consolidate a burgeoning game and propel women’s rugby to new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-84766","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}