England’s Red Roses create new revolution in women’s rugby

The immediate hours and days following England’s Women’s Rugby World Cup triumph have been choreographed closely.

Considering they came into the tournaments as white-hot favourites, there was no excuse for them not to be.

After a Sunday morning news conference at their Lensbury base, with orange juice being sipped tentatively between answers, the squad boarded a specially wrapped team bus to travel to a public celebration party at Battersea Power Station.

Next weekend, the players will disperse to rugby clubs around the country to sprinkle some stardust on RugbyFest, a nationwide “open house” designed to turn new followers of the game into regular players and volunteers.

In four weeks’ time, the domestic Premiership Women’s Rugby (PWR) season kicks off with a front-loaded fixture list of blockbuster games.

Defending champions Gloucester-Hartpury (with Zoe Aldcroft, Natasha Hunt, Maud Muir, Alex Matthews, Tatyana Heard et al) meet Saracens (featuring Zoe Harrison, Jess Breach, Marlie Packer, Rosie Galligan and the rest) live on TNT Sports.

Ellie Kildunne’s Harlequins take on Sadia Kabeya’s Loughborough Lightning in the first weekly game of BBC Sport’s new expanded deal with the league.

For the first time, every single top-flight match will be available to watch live, with those not shown by broadcasters being streamed on YouTube.

Finally in April, England will return to Twickenham’s Allianz Stadium for successive matches for the first time, facing Ireland in their Six Nations opener in April.

“We’ve shown we can sell the tickets and people want to come and watch women’s rugby,” said Kildunne.

“Why wouldn’t you invest into it? It’s a sport that’s going to keep on growing. This is just the start now. We’ve set a standard and we’re not going to look back.”