28 April 2023 , 15:00
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England's women's rugby union team are set for a historic match on Saturday, playing against France in a Six Nations title decider in front of a world record 53,000+ crowd at Twickenham.
The game is between two of the sport's most successful sides in recent years, and will decide the destination of the TikTok Six Nations title for 2023. It will be played in a standalone fixture at England rugby's HQ for the first time, with the highest ever crowd for a women's match expected.
The previous record was set last autumn, with the World Cup final at Eden Park in New Zealand against the hosts drawing a 42,579 crowd. England lost that match, despite having been resoundingly the world's best team over the previous 18 months, and have had to regroup with some new faces during their Six Nations campaign so far.
Ex-captain Sarah Hunter played her last match at the start of the Six Nations, with Loughborough Lightning teammate Emily Scarratt also out injured. This has left head coach Simon Middleton having to try new combinations during the tournament as his side begin their preparations for the 2025 World Cup, for which they will be hosts.
One such example of the new guard coming in has been prop Mackenzie Carson, who, after three caps for Canada, changed her allegiance to the country she has lived and worked in since 2018 ahead of this year's Six Nations. All of her four appearances have come in comfortable wins against Wales, Scotland, Italy and Ireland, and she will arrive from the bench this weekend.
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Speaking to the Mirror this week, Carson revealed how she hoped to keep focused despite what will be her first outing on the hallowed turf of English rugby. The 25-year-old, who has an English mother, was only confirmed as a member of the squad on March 22nd following her application to switch allegiances from Canada to England under new World Rugby eligibility regulations being approved.
Mackenzie Carson (C) will sing the national anthem with her England teammates at Twickenham on Saturday (Photo by Catherine Ivill - RFU/The RFU Collection via Getty Images)She said: "Yeah, I think obviously I'd love to think that I'd be focused on the task and I think it will be a a pretty cool day for sure. You know, obviously whether I'm involved or whether I'm watching or supporting the team in a different capacity, I think just being around the environment has been super exciting.
"Off the back of a disappointing, loss at in the World Cup, I think it's a second opportunity to kind of show where we've gone since then and and the new kind of pathway."
Carson is one of ten members of the Saracens squad who are in the England setup for this tournament, with captain Marlie Packer leading the way from back-row. Her experience will be crucial for a game like this, with two of the world's top three sides competing and Carson revealed how she felt her team needs to draw on the experience of players such as Packer.
"Obviously it's so exciting and there's a lot of talk around it," she continued. "But at the same time, it's just a game of rugby and I think that's kind of where at least I'm focusing on cause I've definitely never played in front of that many people. So yeah, it's it's going to be exciting. And yeah, I'll definitely have to lean on kind of some of the older players to lead me through it."
Marlie Packer of England and Saracens"It's been obviously good to have, you know, Marlie Packer, who leads at Sarries and and also here to lean on and and really build me up and she's been she's been great. So yeah, it's been really good to have, you know, some of my friends in in camp around around the pitch and the all field stuff I think too is really important."
Carson played against England for current number four ranked team in the world Canada in 2018, making her debut as a hooker and has since transformed into a loosehead prop. Having first played in England for Bristol, she has since joined Saracens, a move which has enabled her to earn an England callup, with the University of British Columbia alumnus winning the Allianz Premier 15s in 2021/22 with the North London club.
It has been three big wins for the Red Roses so far in the tournament, with 233 points scored and just 15 conceded while there have been some good performances from their opponents, none have been able to match the fitness levels of England. This comes as the world's number one ranked team sees its domestic league growing while other countries struggle to keep pace.
Carson added: "Women's rugby is definitely growing and there's there's still kind of that big gap between different countries, but I think we've seen a big improvement. Having previously played for Canada, where they're not full-time professional, I think, yeah, that it's really difficult to expect that level of play from people who, go back to work the the following week after an international.
"Yeah, it would be great to see the growth of women's rugby globally I think at the end of the day, there's people out there that want to invest in it and there's there's there's a way to do it. It's just about kind of unlocking that and doing it."
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Unlocking the potential in the women's game is well underway, with a Sport England study finding that the number of adult women playing rugby has grown from 25,000 to 40,000 in five years.
The chance is that many of those additional 15,000 players and their families will be in attendance on Saturday for what will be a great occasion for rugby union and testament to the hard work done across the board in recent years.
Carson continued: "I think it's definitely going in a positive way. I'm sure you could pull up some negative things about women's rugby as well, but you know at the end of the day, I think we're moving in the right direction and. Even just like the broadcasting and the views and all that sort of stuff is moving in the right direction and with a home World Cup on the horizon, I think it's only going to grow from here."