World Cup winner Emily Scarratt has backed Northampton fans to come out in their droves when the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 heads to Franklin’s Gardens next year.

The home of Northampton Saints and Scarratt’s own Loughborough Lightning, is one of the eight host venues for the Women’s Rugby World Cup in England next year, hosting six pool matches in all.

Among those is the Red Roses’ clash with Samoa, which Scarratt will hope to be involved in, while the likes of Ireland, France, South Africa and debutants Brazil are also going to be out in force at the Gardens.

And for Scarratt, between the quality of the pitch and the unrivalled support of the fans, those matches should be an absolute treat.

She said: “I’m super excited. Having a home Women’s Rugby World Cup is an amazing opportunity for us given the current state of the game. The national side is going well and we have the country getting behind us. To be able to showcase that in our country at the moment could be an amazing opportunity. To have the games at Franklin’s Gardens in Northampton, for the local girls it will be awesome, and for the Loughborough Lightning contingent as well.

“And it’s not just the England girls, we’ve got the Scots, the Americans etc (at Lightning). To be able to host the games is going to be awesome. We know how good the Northampton fans are, how well they support us and how much they love rugby so we’re really excited for that.

“The pitch is unbelievable, it’s the first thing that everybody says after they have played there. The pitch is in unbelievable nick, it’s a surface that you want to go out and play on, you know you’ll play some good rugby there. There will be none of those issues around having heavy legs. And then the stadium is amazing and the fans are so passionate about watching rugby, they know their stuff and really get behind you.”

It will be the first time England has hosted the tournament in 15 years, with Scarratt part of the side that reached the final back in 2010.

On that occasion, they were beaten by New Zealand in the final at the Stoop, in front of a then world record of 13,253.

The hope this year is that the final – being played just down the road at Twickenham – will be a sell-out with the game having been completely transformed. The tournament has already generated record demand, with more than 100,000 tickets requested in just the first week of the application phase adding to the 130,000 tickets already sold in the presale,  and fans still have time to apply for tickets as part of the general sale ticket application window which is open until 11:00 (GMT) on 19 November.

Scarratt admits that it is still hard to get her head around how far the game has come.

She added: “When I think back to 2010, I still remember that as an amazing thing, the amount of people who came to watch and the coverage we got. Then I think, what could this one be like given how far the game has come.

“I can’t quite wipe the smile off my face as to what that is going to be like. There is no doubt the game has come a long way, and it’s why it’s awesome that England is hosting again. We’ve driven quite a lot of standards for women’s rugby around the world, New Zealand was obviously awesome but I hope this one can be bigger and better.”

The Women’s Rugby World Cup England 2025 gets underway at the Stadium of Light in Sunderland on Friday 22 August and runs until 27th September. Don’t miss out! General sale ticket applications for all matches are available until 11:00 (GMT) 19 November 2024. Visit tickets.rugbyworldcup.com