intoThe time will surely come for the Women’s Six Nations to deliver more compelling and consequential contests but, for now, Twickenham seems content to bask in the Red Roses’ glory. 196 days on from Rugby World Cup glory, England were back at a scene of triumph that they are increasingly making their own; the crowd may have been ever-so-slightly smaller, and the stakes rather more considerably so, but here was another occasion to illustrate how far the game has come – and how far it might still have to go.
The attendance of 77,120 was a record for any fixture in this championship, an increase of almost a third on the previous mark set here three years ago against France. That was a barmy, balmy April afternoon that swung this way and that; there was not that sort of jeopardy or, in truth, quality here, with Ireland dropping the opening kick off and unable to stay with an error-prone, erratic England thereafter.
