Almost 82,000 spectators crammed the three-tiers of Twickenham as the Red Roses secured World Cup glory.
It was a record crowd for a women’s rugby match and a Rugby World Cup match. In fact, the whole event broke Women’s World Cup records, with over 440,000 tickets sold across the event, surpassing the sales target of 350,000.
It was an unforgettable five weeks and Your Sharks were right in the middle of the action….
England’s Morwenna Tallling and Amy Cokayne helped the host nation kick off their tournament in front of almost 50,000 spectators in Sunderland. They’d go on to play in all but one of England’s matches, missing just the 92-3 win over Samoa.
Sharks fly-half Holly Aitchison missed England’s first two games but returned for the pool stage win over Australia and started the quarter-final win over Scotland.
Our Red Roses faced familiar opposition at the Stadium of Light as three of our USA Eagles – Erica Jarrell-Searcy, Georgie Perris-Redding and Olivia Ortiz – started a game that England would eventually run out as 69-7 winners.
The CorpAcq Stadium was the venue for two fixtures on the first Saturday of the World Cup as Australia v Samoa was followed by Scotland v Wales, which featured six Sharks.
Leah Bartlett and Rhona Lloyd started for Scotland, with Molly Wright and Eva Donaldson coming off the bench. Leah and Rhona would go on to start all of Scotland’s games including their quarter final defeat to England. Molly and Eva featured from the bench in each game, while fellow Shark Evie Wills was named as a replacement in three of Scotland’s five games.
Gwenllian Pyrs and Courtney Keight were in the Wales XV at the CorpAcq Stadium and they were ever-present for their country, playing in all three of their pool stage games.
But it wasn’t just the home nations represented at the World Cup. Beatrice Rigoni missed out as Italy kicked off their tournament with a defeat to France, but she was back in the 12 shirt as her country suffered a narrow loss to South Africa.
Alba Capell was named at number 8 as Spain kicked off their World Cup with defeat. She missed the defeat to Ireland but returned as her country wrapped up the pool stage with defeat against Japan.
It was a memorable tournament for all our Sharks Women and now the countdown is on until we welcome them back to the Morson Stadium for the start of the PWR.
Leicester Tigers are the visitors on Saturday 25th October and tickets are available now here!
