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For the girls: The 2025 Premiership Women's Rugby final preview
The 2025 Premiership Women’s Rugby final. Where to begin? After 18 unforgettable rounds – humming with jeopardy, opalescent with stardust, and woven with narrative threads of every conceivable colour – and then a pair of battle royale semis, thrashed out beneath serotonin waves of ‘Pink Pony Club’ – we’re spoiled for choice.
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Let’s start with the obvious, then. Sunday isn’t for the faint-hearted. It’s not for the half-committed. But it’s definitely – absolutely – for the girls.
It’s for the girls from North London – who play in black like the self-styled menaces they are, and who are driven by an incandescent desire to be champions once more. Knockout rugby is theatre from the gods – sheer magnificence – but it’s also no fun whatsoever when you’re not invited. Saracens – having clattered the penultimate hurdle for two years in a row – are going about their business with a thrilling, mesmeric fury.
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It’s for the girls from Gloucester – who call themselves ‘The Circus’ because their jerseys look like big tops and they’re a right laugh on a night out – but, really, the way they most embody their namesake is in the way they ripple with dangerous beasts, magicians, and tumblers – and the way they leave floors littered with popcorn, dropped in shock and awe.
The girls who drove a flag into West Country turf in 2023 and haven’t relinquished the trophy since; who relish occasions; who merrily douse their morning Weetabix with expectation and take their coffee with GOAT milk.
Sunday is for the girls who’ll pack out the StoneX – with their felt-tipped signs, and their hero-emblazoned jerseys, and the butterflies in their stomachs at the very prospect of getting a selfie with Zoe Aldcroft. For the girls who subscribe to Jess Breach’s ‘Wanna Be A Red Rose?’ channel on Instagram – and fervently, desperately do.
It’s for the girls who don’t know anything other than women’s club games with thousands of people present, and those overseas who tune in once a week for their fix of ballistic ballet.
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Are we clear? The PWR final is for the girls.
But, because this space is proudly and wholly inclusive – and this is crucial, so listen up – it’s also, very much, for everybody else. Sunday is for whoever wants a piece of the best domestic competition in the women’s game – and to be part of a riveting closing number.
The PWRs-that-be have spent this rip-roaring season doling out drama – from Salford to Sandy Park and back again, via some wince-eliciting crunches at Ashton Gate, and the fever dreams which come as standard now with a ticket to Vallis Way – but the denouement has arrived, and – as each crumb of StoneX rubber trembles in anticipation – she’s a beauty.
Saracens versus Gloucester-Hartpury might just prove the most titanic final we’ve ever seen – the collision of two sides not only physically ferocious, but who have dominated this competition. We’ve not had a finale without one of these behemoths since before the league’s restructuring in 2017, and they’re both in scorching form – only emerging stronger from tumultuous, identity-wracking campaigns.
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The champions – after the ‘crisis’ of coming up short in three of their opening six – have reeled off ten full-fat, bonus point victories – whilst Saracens reignited their own ‘dog’ mentality after notching a historic fourth loss. They’ve subsequently strung together six thumping dubs, and find themselves 80 away from a first pot lift in over a thousand days. Once the hunted: now the hunters – which will suit this wolf pack just fine.
Super Saturday in the Six Nations should prove the perfect amuse-bouche – and allow this title bout, and its stars, the centre stage they so deserve. From the ice flowing through Zoe Harrison and Emma Sing’s veins to the lava which seemingly fuels Marlie Packer – there’ll be an elemental intensity to this one.
Poppy Cleall, Zoe Aldcroft, and Alex Matthews: colossal. Jess Breach, Alysha Corrigan, and Mia Venner: electric. Mo Hunt – pure tenacity. May Campbell – pure guts. Georgia Evans and Neve Jones – pure snarl.
If you were to judge them solely on first impressions, you’d deem Sean Lynn and Alex Austerberry different species. The Welshman shakes your hand with a twinkle in his eye – as quick to enthuse about ‘family’ as he is reluctant to talk about himself – even as his final act as ‘King of Hartpury’ rolls around.
His counterpart’s default setting is ‘bristling’: this quick-draw champion has given the PWR press pack the calves of Josua Tuisova, so thornily does he keep them on their toes. At first glance, they’re Northern chalk and Swansea cheese.
And yet, spend a little longer with both and you realise Lynn has a diamond-cut relentlessness about him, and a competitive core of steel whilst Austerberry comes alive at talk of Sarries’ own pathway – the talent they’re honing, and the ‘connections which go so much deeper than rugby’ in his squad.
Whether he guides the Londoners to a fourth title this weekend, or it’s Lynn wearing the ski goggles – waved off and over a golden-hour Severn Bridge, three fingers aloft – they’re a formidable pair, and have orchestrated the performance peaks of dreams at the end of the most gruelling of five-month slogs.
If this piece started with a statement, it ends with an ellipsis, because what’s next is what matters and the great unknown. We’re headed towards 80 minutes of turmoil, between a kick-off and a trio of conclusive whistle blasts, when knees triumphant and devastated alike will crash to the floor and the English game will crown its queens. There are two juggernauts left standing – who pride themselves on ruthless, entertaining, and confrontational rugby – and space for just one on that podium.
The 2025 PWR Final. For glory – for the girls – let’s have it…
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Very well put. Looking forward to the match as I have fallen for the Red Roses in the last few years and now appreciate the PWR and women’s rugby in ways that have surprised me. Thanks for the clarion call to this 76yr old come lately to the women’s game.