Women's TikTok Rugby Six Nations
The Six Nations competition ended on Saturday 29th April with a thrilling trio of matches.
England played France in the very first stand alone fixture (not on the same day as a men's match) at Twickenham in front of a World Record Breaking Crowd! 58,498 people watched a thrilling match where tries were plentiful. Both teams clearly had lots of nerves at the start of the match and the play did not flow. France dominated the play but could not seem to get any points on the board. Then the red Roses settled down and by half time they were dominating the scoreline with a huge lead of 33-0. The second half, however, gave them a shock and the final score was extremely close! France came back into the game with huge spirit and passion and the final result was 38 - 33 to England!
They had won the Six Nations Championship and the crowd went wild.
Italy played Wales with Wales taking the victory with a the final score 10-36. It meant that Wales came third in the table and came away from the Championship having improved on last year’s result where they only won two matches. Wales are an exciting team to watch and their successes can only grow.
Scotland faced Ireland and won the match easily, 36-10. Again, the crowd was a fantastic boost to the Scotland team, a new attendance record of 4,862 and there was a positive, exciting atmosphere. Again, they are a team to watch as they are gaining momentum and fans. Unfortunately, Ireland has received some negative comments from inside Irish rugby which have meant controversial headlines and cannot have improved team morale. We hope there is a change afoot and they can start to strengthen their team as well as the team behind the scenes.
The final results:
1.England
2. France
3. Wales
4. Scotland
5. Italy
6. Ireland
As we have said above, there have been lots of controversial comments and views about women's rugby to date. Some people still think rugby is a game for men, others that the women's game deserves to be in second place to the men's game because more people watch men's rugby. However, there has been a great deal of work behind the scenes to raise the profile of the women's game, to get more media coverage and to offer the bigger venues to allow the crowds to attend and dispel those views.
This year's TikTok Women's Six Nations has been the biggest yet and the Twickenham crowd has shown how many people will attend women's matches - if they are given the opportunity.
The next stage is to offer all of the women's professional rugby players proper contracts and full pay so that they can focus full time on their game like the men do. At the moment, the majority still work day jobs and train when they can.
It's an exciting time for women's rugby!
Thank you to England Rugby for the videos in this article.
