England women’s Rowland seeks rise in club crowds after Twickenham record

England’s Helena Rowland hopes the Red Roses’ grand slam success in front of a women’s world-record crowd at Twickenham will be a springboard for higher attendances in the domestic game.

Rowland, who plays for Loughborough Lightning in the Premier 15s, started Saturday’s historic match in front of 58,498 fans as England beat France 38-33. After some respite the England players will return to their clubs with the next round of the Premier 15s taking place on the weekend of 13-14 May.

The league’s attendances are growing but not at the same rate as the huge crowds England are starting to gather. The record for the Premier 15s was set in March when 15,420 fans watched Harlequins face Exeter Chiefs at Quins’ Big Game at Twickenham. It broke the record by more than 6,000 supporters but the number is not a weekly figure and Rowland believes that is the next thing to tackle.

“That’s the next challenge, we’ve proved there’s an appetite for women’s rugby and hopefully that will soon be evident in the club game,” Rowland said. “All these players are playing week in, week out. It’s a really competitive league and it would be good to get some bigger numbers down.”

The league is becoming more competitive with the once massively dominant Saracens and Harlequins currently third and fifth in the table. Exeter Chiefs also last season became the first club that were not Saracens or Harlequins to reach the Premier 15s final. The England prop Hannah Botterman, a three-time Premier 15s winner with Saracens, says with that growing competition the crowds will come.

“The games have to be good for people to come and watch them,” Botterman said. “The Premier 15s is going in that direction. We’ve had a rush of funding and hopefully we can put