Sunderland – With shy FX & T Power lyrics and always reinforced drizzle, the red roses made final preparations in front of the empty red and white seats in the Stadium of Light.
Several players kicked the soccer, others warmed and laughed. It was late Thursday night, watching England and they looked out of pressure after the eve of the tournament captain’s run ahead of the match against the US. But coming on Friday night, with the start of the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup, expectations for this England team will raise some notches.
There were rarely any tournaments that had such an overwhelming favorite. This is the status he lost only one of his final 60 matches and won a victory that stretches to 26 on bounce. However, over the next five weeks, 15 teams are about to stop them on the track, the biggest World Cup ever.
A total of 375,000 tickets have been sold so far. Approximately 80% of the total allocation. For context, in 2017, a total of 45,412 tickets were sold over the entire 30-match tournament. That’s a figure right next to the crowd expected to play against the US in Sunderland on Friday.
This will be a tournament where Redborough cements its position as the sport’s most dominant team, or a race to see the most monumental upset. It is another chapter in World Cup of America superstar Ironamaher, the mysterious Ellie Kildun and the timeless Portha Woodman Wickriff. It will be the setting for young people like Wairia Ellis in Australia and Jorja Miller in New Zealand. The World Cup will be a mix of semi-professionals and amateurs. The tournament will increase the length and width of England – from Sunderland in the far north to Brighton in the deep south.
World Rugby wants to emphasize that this tournament is different from what we saw before.
They don’t want to copy male models. Instead, this is personality first. Each team has embedded content creators, bringing fans and new audiences to the team and introducing new role models. More female coaches will appear than ever (up 32% from 15% in 2021), but the final at the sold-out Twickenham has all the female ground staff.
Just a month or so after the success of Lioness in Switzerland, it has raised the possibility of the most incredible golden summer for women’s sports in the UK.
There’s no doubt about that, the red roses are under pressure.
Apart from the tournament victory, it would be a shock and rugby disaster for them. Some players on the team have never experienced a test defeat. Others have only the final loss of the 2022 World Cup to New Zealand as a reference point for rugby devastation. So it’s against the background that they come to the home tournament.
They have incredible strength as great captains to boot with Zoe Aldcroft and Mesmeric Center Meg Jones. Kildunne and some others should establish crossport celebrities’ names by the end of the tournament, like Leah Williamson, Chloe Kelly, or Ella Toone.
Backroom staff includes Sarah Hunter, the team’s captain in both 2017 and 2021, as defensive coach. A lecture from her and you will be ready to run through the brick wall.
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Form and logic tell them they should win everything, but the pressure does something strange.
As John Mitchell said Wednesday, their buzzword is “cohesion,” but they also recognize the responsibility that comes with streaming in home tournaments. “It’s a big ride that we exist,” Mitchell said. “We start the tour equally like everyone else. Being a favorite has nothing to do with us. We need to get the right thing every week.”
They spoke about the Six Nations Grand Slam victory, as it was their base camp for the final attempt to summble rugby Everest. That’s the purpose, but it also has a broader meaning in their journey. For Captain Ald Croft, she hopes the tournament will be “a absolute starting point for the boom.”
But England is just one of the 16 teams here. If you’re looking for other potential winners, Canada and New Zealand can also be bracketed.
Canada ranks second in the world and features outstanding backlower Sophie de Gaudé. They head to England, backed by a 42-10 victory in the US that unfolded in front of then-recorded crowds for women’s rugby matches in North America, with 11,453 hoping for them on their way to Ottawa. Rugby Canada crowdfunding is crowdfunding the team’s journey with “Mission: Win the Rugby World Cup” and trying to raise money, as they said, “runs only a small portion of the top competition budget.”
For New Zealand, Black Fern is the champion, winning six of their past seven World Cup titles. Since the famous night at Eden Park in November, they have endured sticky spells. In 2022, they shattered England’s hearts with that 34-31 victory.
They’ve returned to their ranks with Woodman Wickriff – one of the greatest players the game has seen – and despite the tough run that lost 10 to 6 from October 2023 to November 2024, they’re back to the horrifying best. World-promising coach Alan Bunting has promised that this is another improved New Zealand team.
Their neighbor Australia hasn’t been much more successful in XV than Seven, but fantasizes the possibility of completing a knockout with 17-year-old genius Ellis, but does it without an injured Charlotte Cuslick while Sevens star Madison Levy stays in the short form of the game.
Hometown has different hopes. Ireland will target the semi-final spots – and who knows next from there – but there will be no key players Dorothy Wall and Elinking. They have an outstanding backrow Aoife wafer with an incredible scoring record of 12 tries in 15 Tests, but she faces competition from time to recover from knee surgery last month.
The team, which failed to qualify for the 2022 World Cup, is backed by the “Green Wave,” but aims to get things right in the UK. They have an inexperienced team with Cliodhna Moloney-Macdonald, the sole representative of the crop in 2017, but they know that overcoming New Zealand 29-27 in September 2024 can beat the best.
Wales is settling under new coach Sean Lynn after a turbulent spell that saw WRU get attacked for hardline tactics in 2024. It saw a lot of departures and Lynn is the perfect guy to move them forward.
They have shown some improvement as they beat Australia 21-12 in July. They will sympathize with Pool B Neighbor Scotland, who is experiencing a contract battle with the Scottish Rugby Union. The deal debate continues in the 11th hour, and by now, more than half of the current teams have no post-World Cup contracts, according to people at the camp, and manager Brian Eastson has also ended.
In short, it’s far from ideal.
“My spirit as a captain is to make my players feel like superwomen. It’s to cherish them and make them feel like they belong,” Scotland captain Rachel Malcolm said in July. “And the process that took place behind the scenes definitely made my job a little more difficult, as it definitely went through the near-opposition of these three things.”
Elsewhere, Brazil is featured in the first-ever XVS Women’s World Cup, with Fiji in the second edition. There are plenty of inspirational stories, and the amateur status of so many players in the tournament means everyday life is mixed with the exceptional ones.
Samara Vergara, Brazil – animator/tattoist during the day and full-back at night.
The deceased of Olivia in Canada is a firefighter, while Nina Foase of Samoa is a social worker and mother of three.
In South Africa, I read about the incredible story of Mary Zulu left outside the care centre as a newborn and is now one of the team’s two fly herbs. South Africa is helping the Puck to offer their best eight years after monkeys decided not to participate in the 2017 World Cup due to poor results. They are paired with France – they will look to the tournament’s delayed run to reach the final in 2022. They are a team that has never lived up to their potential and they also try to fix it in Italy.
And then there are Maher and the United States. Maher is the most followed player in rugby on social media with 8.8 million followers on Instagram and Tiktok. Her influence and personality have led to a siege change in mentality regarding sports, and the phrase “AA High Tide Raise All Boats” is appropriate here as her teammates use her examples to push their own social channels and develop a fresh fanbase.
“This is an era where women’s rugby is in a state where we can grow dramatically, and we believe this team is on the forefront of how we present ourselves and our people’s perceptions,” Maher said Wednesday. “We want more people to look to the game. It’s great to see more stadiums sold out.”
1:30
Ilona Maher: You can’t slip into England
US Irona Maher is looking forward to the opening game of the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup vs. England.
This will be Maher’s World Cup. She has already won the Olympic bronze medal in her name in Paris 2024 – now it’s her turn at her US outside center
She lined up in Sunderland on Friday evening, with the US being a heavy underdog against the UK. That will be the starting point for five weeks of rugby, and we hope that many hopes will further boost the sport and make it more broadly towards global awareness. Before the World Cup began, World Rugby published the findings of a report on what is called the “blueprint for women’s rugby growth.” They have important action points that include making it impossible to miss women’s rugby, allowing players to tell their stories, grow their paths, attract new fans’ attention, and increase the chance to see the game’s stars. It’s a rough plan to take advantage of this bouncing off, but for those on the ground, the story of legacy can wait.
The spotlight will become a sport like never before in the next five weeks, brighter than ever for hosts. The English mantra in the tournament is “for the girls.” But they do it for themselves. I feel that the destinations for the trophy for this tournament are already pre-determined. But sports the unpredictability continues to grab us. When you think you know how the film ends, there is always that slow twist or turn. England hopes it’s an easy path to lift the trophy in front of a sold-out Twickenham on September 27th. However, there are 15 other countries that are trying to make the story a go-to favor.