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Women's Rugby World Cup: Dates, teams, location, format, history and more

The pinnacle of women's international rugby, the Women's Rugby World Cup is a quadrennial tournament with the next edition to be staged in England in 2025.

Rugby Union

Women's Rugby World Cup dates

The 2025 Women's Rugby World Cup will take place between Friday 22nd August and Saturday 27th September.

Women's Rugby World Cup location and venues

The 2025 Women's Rugby World Cup will be held in England.

It's the second time the country has hosted the tournament, with the first being staged in 2010. Eight venues have been confirmed for the Rugby World Cup.

  • Twickenham Stadium (London)
  • Stadium of Light (Sunderland)
  • Amex Stadium (Brighton)
  • Ashton Gate (Bristol)
  • Sandy Park (Exeter)
  • Franklin's Gardens (Northampton)
  • Salford Community Stadium (Salford)
  • York Community Stadium (York)

Women's Rugby World Cup teams

The 2025 Women's Rugby World Cup will see 16 nations compete for glory, an increase from the 12 teams which participated in the 2021 tournament.

The competing 16 have been divided into four pools of four teams.

Pool A

  • England
  • Australia
  • United States
  • Samoa

Pool B

  • Canada
  • Scotland
  • Wales
  • Fiji

Pool C

  • New Zealand
  • Ireland
  • Japan
  • Spain

Pool D

  • France
  • Italy
  • South Africa
  • Brazil

Women's Rugby World Cup format

The Women's Rugby World Cup commences with the Pool Stage where nations will play one another in a round-robin format, with the top two teams advancing to the knockout stage.

The knockout stage consists of three single-elimination rounds culminating in the final.

If the scores are level at the end of regulation time in a knockout match, two 10-minute periods of extra time will be played.

Women's Rugby World Cup history

The inaugural edition of the Women's Rugby World Cup was hosted by Wales in 1991 in which 12 nations participated and the United States were the victors, defeating England 19-6 in the final.

Deciding to bring the tournament forward 12 months so that it was staged a year prior to the men's tournament, the second Women's Rugby World Cup was held in Scotland in 1994 and won by England.

Then came the turn of New Zealand's dominance, who won the first of their six titles in 1998. Only a defeat to Ireland in the 2014 Pool Stage has prevented them from completing a clean sweep in the seven tournaments that have followed.

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