Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup organisers have insisted that the high number of mismatches so far will not dampen the tournament\u2019s momentum after hailing an \u201celectric\u201d first week.<\/p>\n
More than 85,000 spectators watched the opening eight group games, with England\u2019s 69-7 thrashing of the United States<\/a> attracting a peak TV audience of 2.4m. Meanwhile France\u2019s 24-0 win over Italy also broke records with 3.2m watching on TF1 in France.<\/p>\n But the difference in standards was also evident with the average margin of victory in the first round of matches being 47 points. There were no close matches either, with France\u2019s comfortable win over Italy proving to be the tightest game.<\/p>\n More mismatches are expected this weekend, with England taking on Samoa, who lost their opening game 73-0 to Australia<\/a>, and New Zealand facing Japan, who they beat 95-12 in their only previous encounter.<\/p>\n However Yvonne Nolan, the competition director for Rugby World Cup 2025, insisted that standards were being raised all the time and closer games would come.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you like free-flowing rugby and tries, you\u2019re seeing it,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you like an arm wrestle, it will come. These matches are going to get tighter and tighter as we get through the pools and into the knockouts.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd part of this is about the trajectory of this game. Different teams are at different stages of their development. They all deserve to be here.<\/p>\n \u201cIn 2006 I was part of an Ireland team beaten by France 43-0. Today, Ireland are ranked fifth, just behind France. If we all get behind these teams, that performance gap will close. But certainly I would say watch and wait. The arm wrestles will come.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile World Rugby\u2019s Sally Horrox insisted that the wide margin of defeats did not always tell the full story, and fans were seeing the ball in play more, as well as better movement and higher skill levels.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, the top teams really made their mark,\u201d she added. \u201cBut those teams in this expanded format \u2013 if you look at Spain, Brazil and Fiji \u2013 they really stood up. There was some fearless, brave defence among those teams.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week’s action reviewed<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n That message was reinforced by Sarah Massey, the tournament\u2019s managing director, who said that fans were enjoying what they were seeing.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s really consistent across all the matches we\u2019ve seen so far is the electric atmosphere, the joy and the vibrancy of the fans, and that sense and feeling that they\u2019re part of something that\u2019s really special,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd it\u2019s not just us saying that. We sent out a post-match survey to all of those who attended, and they are replying in their 1000s, saying how much they are enjoying the fan experience overall.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup organisers have insisted that the high number of mismatches so far will not dampen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-94038","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\/94038","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=94038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}