Wedding tradition dictates that it is poor form for the bridesmaid to be sporting a white dress but in the Women’s Rugby World Cup, England are used to be being upstaged. In each of the last six editions of the tournament, the team now commonly known as the Red Roses have reached the World Cup final; only once have they been celebrating in glorious rugby union at its end.
But there is hope that a road pockmarked with mistakes and misfortune may be at an end as England’s day of destiny arrives. Where New Zealand could count on a home crowd three years ago in Auckland, this time the 82,000 guests arrive at England’s invitation to a southwest London venue ready to bounce to a new beat and celebrate the changing face of a game unlocking new audiences. The Red Roses have not lost since the Black Ferns stole their thunder – and lineout – at Eden Park; turn a record 32 game unbeaten run into 33 and they will finally have the grand prize to truly crown their dominance.
“We always ask more of ourselves,” head coach John Mitchell said on Thursday, confident his side would rise to the occasion. We probably don't even know what that ceiling is – it’s probably wrong of us to set a limit. These girls are driven, they want to get better.
“Ultimately this tournament is probably the one tournament in the world that you respect. It puts curve balls in, um, you have to deal with a lot of adversity to get to this point, and Saturday will be no different. But the difference, this time you've got one and two in the world in the final, which is, which is so good for the game. It’ll require an 80-minute performance, which we will have to earn.”
There are two strands to every World Cup final – the game itself and the occasion that accompanies it. Perhaps more so than ever before, it is on that latter element that the focus has fallen this week. Gathered together to reflect on the men’s and women’s Six Nations campaigns in April, Rugby Football Union (RFU) executives teed up this tournament with a PowerPoint slide with a single date on it. It was not, however, the date of the World Cup’s start but its end, not to show arrogance but the sense of expectation and recognition of what the hosts making it to the showpiece decider would mean.
When Mitchell took his role as head coach in 2023, he spoke of filling the deep green seats of Twickenham, a goal that England will fulfil with their home sold out for the final. There will be plenty at the RFU, in World Rugby and beyond who are glad we do not have to consider the prospect of a finals day in which England featured in the third-place play-off that serves as a curtain-raiser but having made it to the big dance, a new record crowd for any women’s rugby match is sure to be set.
For the hundreds of players, coaches and executives who fought battles seen and unseen in pursuit of this sort of epochal change, there will be tears in the eyes as they make their way into Allianz Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
“We're so excited to experience it,” England captain Zoe Aldcroft said this week. “It's something that we've never experienced but we've wanted for so long. It's just going to be so exciting to see where we have pushed women's rugby to, and I’m just excited for this new era of women's rugby on Saturday.”
Harnessing the power of that crowd will be vital for the Red Roses in a contest that promises so much; figures like Ellie Kildunne, Meg Jones and Hannah Botterman will be key in that sense. The omens, if one indulges in such things, are already good. It is not the unconquerable final boss that awaits England in the final but Canada, the side who they beat when last they claimed the coveted crown in 2014. New Zealand’s early – at least by their standards – exit has somewhat lessened any sort of revenge or redemption narrative, but Mitchell and his squad had already sought to move their story on to the task at hand rather than overly reflect on past failings.
Certainly, though, they will have to be better than they have been all tournament to deny the developing force that is Canada a first World Cup crown. A simply sensational first half against New Zealand was proof of just how special a spirit and side head coach Kevin Rouet has fostered, with support from Rugby Canada topped up the generosity of the nation’s people that their French coach believes embodies his team. While Sophie de Goede is an obvious centrepiece, and scrum half Justine Pelletier a superb metronome to make the machine tick, each and every cog is almost of equal importance in the connected collective.
There are three survivors in the Canadian matchday squad of their last visit to the final, but the mentality is different. Though a visit from some golden retriever puppies into camp this week perhaps lends itself to such a tag, Rouet and his team have wanted no part of the underdogs term; nor, indeed, that of being a so-called dark horse, shifting the attention from the crowd-funding element of their journey to their steady build into World Cup contenders. Pushing England close at last year’s WXV1 tournament only reinforced their belief.
“It's definitely a different position that we're in now,” lock Tyson Beukeboom, her nation’s most capped rugby player, explains of the difference between now and her last final. “In 2014, we surprised a lot of people. But I don't think anyone who's been watching us in the last couple of years is surprised that we've managed to make the final this time around.
“The Red Roses, because they’re a highly structured team, are easy to play against, but hard to beat,” Beukeboom suggested. “We know how to play against them; we just have to do it. They have an aura about them that has been almost untouched in the last 10 years. Our goal is to burst that aura.”
Part of the reason, of course, that England have carried that aura is because of the early and sustained backing they have received. It is not just their professional contracts, high-quality coaches and wider programme but the development of Premiership Women’s Rugby (PWR), too, the quality of competition on offer in the league helping plenty of players from Canada and other nations along the way, too. There has been frustration, at times, that more unions have not gone with England in giving their female players the backing they have deserved.
A record-breaking tournament in stadia, on television screens and in developing the future of rugby has already proven that investment worth it, but sport is ultimately about winning – and an England triumph on their big day at Twickenham might just launch women’s rugby into a new age.
How England’s investment in women’s rugby helped turn Canada into a major World Cup threat
England head coach John Mitchell: ‘Ultimately, I want to see these girls realise their potential’
Hosts England to use away dressing room for Women’s World Cup final against Canada
Why Canada feel they are ready to conquer England in World Cup final
England’s semi-final star Ellie Kildunne: ‘My secret? I don’t like being tackled’
