A World Cup that could transform the landscape of rugby has sought to put women at its centre. While the players are at the heart of it all, each and every officiating team at this tournament has been led by a female referee, too. For the final, the grounds staff at Twickenham will be entirely comprised of women. Sarah Massey, Rugby World Cup 2025’s managing director, and Sally Horrox, World Rugby’s Chief of Women’s Rugby, have been the tournament’s figureheads and most prominent spokespeople off the pitch, while the ambition of executives including former England captain Sue Day and the influential Alex Teasdale at the Rugby Football Union (RFU) has been realised in a record-breaking event.
But there is one place in which women are not necessarily quite so central. Of the 16 head coaches in England for the tournament, only three are female – and one of those, France’s Gaelle Mignot, splits her duties with David Ortiz. In backroom teams, progress has been made with the number of female coaches overall quadrupling from six at the 2022 World Cup to 23 now – but a figure of 32 percent of coaches that are female still falls short of the 40 percent target set by World Rugby after the last tournament. With Lesley McKenzie’s Japan exiting despite a fine win over Spain, Australia’s Jo Yapp, whose coaching qualities were on full display as Australia navigated into the quarter-finals against England, is the last standalone female head coach standing.
