Former England international Gill Burns described the feeling of walking among a sea of fans ahead of the opening game of Rugby World Cup 2025 as “like we were walking into the future of women’s rugby”.
Burns was in Sunderland for the game between England and USA last month, the opening fixture of what has been a record-breaking Rugby World Cup. World Rugby revealed earlier this week that over 440,000 tickets have been sold for this tournament, which is three times more than the number sold at the last Rugby World Cup three years ago.
Ahead of the game at the Stadium of Light, which was watched by 42,723 people, Burns recalls spending time at the fan zone before walking over the ground.
“It wasn’t just walking into the stadium,” she says of the magnitude of the crowd. “It was arriving at the fan zone and just seeing this huge amount of enthusiastic people, and they weren’t just family and friends of the players, which is what it used to be.
“The guy who was on the mic invited me up onto the stage to answer a few questions and just the response from the crowd and the cheering – they didn’t know me from Adam, they didn’t watch women’s rugby when I was England captain.
“He said ‘we’ve got an ex Red Rose here today on the stage’, and these people who had only just been welcomed into the women’s rugby family were all so appreciative. It was just amazing.
“Then that whole walk from the fan zone through these thousands of people over the new bridge, it just felt like we were walking into the future of women’s rugby. It’s going to be like this from now on and it’s absolutely wonderful.”
The difference from her days is stark. The Red Roses legend won Rugby World Cup 1994, an incredible achievement but not one that many outside the families of the players were there to witness. The players had to pay their own way to be there, and were not compensated – though Burns does recall with a laugh that there were some rewards, one of which came after the opening game of that Rugby World Cup 31 years ago against Russia.
“I think the only thing I got at the end of the Russian game was I got a free shot of vodka from their coach because I’d done a very amateurish speech in Russian after the game,” she says.
“I managed to get a friend of a friend who could speak Russian. I told her a paragraph and she gave me the Russian words and I wrote them down phonetically.
“So having tried to speak Russian to say thank you and well played and all the polite things that you do at the end of the game, the Russian coach gave me a free shot of vodka. So I suppose that was payment in some sort!”
As a result of how far the women’s game has come since then, Burns admits to being emotional when singing the anthem on the opening night in Sunderland last month, as well as at ever England game since.
“I think most of the old Red Roses have shed a tear or 20 every time they’ve arrived at one of the events or one of the functions,” she said.
Burns has a connection to one of the current Red Roses; fly-half Holly Aitchison who made her Rugby World Cup debut in England’s final pool game against Australia in Brighton and Hove after recovering from injury.
“I was obviously bursting with pride when Holly Aitchison played,” she says.
“To see her actually get a chance at this World Cup was wonderful, because I taught Holly, and I’ve known her since she was a little girl. I’m friends with her parents.”
Burns has high praise for the young fly-half, who was among the replacements in England’s semi-final victory over France after starting in the quarter-final against Scotland.
“I think she’s absolutely outstanding,” Burns continued. “I think she’s the most outstanding 10 that’s ever played in the women’s game.
“But I understand why (John Mitchell) may have chosen Zoe (Harrison), she’s a different type of 10, and it all depends on the game plan, and we trust in Mitch and his plans to win the World Cup.”
Whoever it is that is picked in the number ten jersey this weekend for the final will have the task of leading England’s attack at a sold-out Allianz Stadium. Burns recalls being asked in an interview in the late 90s if she though women’s rugby would ever be professional.
While she says she felt professionalism was coming for the generation after her, even she could not have imagined the home of rugby putting up ‘sold out’ signs for a women’s game. She says it’s just rewards after an historic Women’s Rugby World Cup which she describes as the best sporting event she has ever witnessed.
“I dreamed it would become professional. I dreamed we playing at Twickenham, and that did happen for the girls who were just after me,” she said.
“I probably hadn’t dreamed of filling Twickenham, but I know it’s right, and I know they deserve it. It’s wonderful and I’m delighted for everybody involved.
“I’ve been to men’s rugby, I’ve been to women’s rugby all over the world and World Cups galore. This is, by far in a way, the best sporting event of any description I’ve ever been to.”