Abby Dow isn’t quite sure what comes next – beyond the celebrations, of course. England’s World Cup-winning wing has been without a club all summer, leaving any decision over her future until after the tournament to ensure full focus on the campaign and righting the wrongs of 2022. That goal achieved, the mountaintop reached, now there are decisions to be made,
“I put all my energy building up to today, and now it is, ‘how do I feel? What do I want to do?’” the wing says. “I have no idea. It is 100 per cent a discussion I will do when I’m sober. I think celebrate now, and work out the serious things later.”
Dow has earned a few days – or more – of revelry. Her build-up to the last World Cup was heavily disrupted by a horror leg injury as well as the death of her father, Paul, before defeat in the final to New Zealand broke her heart again. Dow initially struggled to process that day; at a packed Twickenham on Saturday, she was stunned into silence again in a very different way.
“Everyone has asked me how I’m feeling, and I’m not really sure. I think I was in shock when the whistle went. From the emotions of the last World Cup, where we had a shock of a different realisation.
“I started hugging people and I’m not really a hugger, and then I broke down, and I’m going to blame it on the hugging and not the fact that everything just hit me. Emotions are all over the place, but I’m incredibly proud of the girls and incredibly proud of the journey we’ve been on as individuals and as a team.”
The World Cup win represents the culmination of a journey that began at Maidenhead Rugby Club, Dow following in the footsteps of brother Chris and sister Ruth – who would probably have been a Red Rose, too, if not for injury. “When I was young, rugby was a rock for our family,” Dow explains. “The Sundays where dad ended up coaching my side, mum would be watching trying to go between three children, all of us were playing. We’d be begging mum and dad, ‘please can we have a pound for chips afterwards?’
“Ultimately, I wouldn’t be here without them. I wouldn’t be here without trying to compete with my siblings or my mum and my dad having to drive me everywhere. It was so lovely that I was able to go in the crowd and hug them. We’ve achieved this together as a family, and I think every single player will dedicate this to their families and the hardest working parents in the world. Without them, we wouldn’t have done it.”
Dow’s England debut came in 2017 in the wake of a World Cup final defeat, making her international bow alongside Jess Breach and Ellie Kildunne to usher in a new era for the Red Roses’ back three. Just a small scattering of fans were at the ground then known as Allianz Park for that clash with Canada; at Allianz Stadium on Saturday, the change could not have been clearer.
“The emotions really started hitting me when we arrived at Twickenham,” Dow reflects. “We’ve had it in the past when we’ve played France and we’ve had 58,000 people and you get that crowd hitting you. This time around it was even more of a surreal experience.
“Normally the crowd is at eye level, but suddenly you look up and the whole of Twickenham Stadium just has people coming down the spiral staircases. I was struggling to breathe at one point because I couldn’t believe what was happening to us.
“This is women’s rugby and it is here to stay. We, as a team, have worked so hard but everyone else has worked so hard – all the volunteers, all the people that go behind the scenes brought that as well. Fine, we have the platform to perform, but it comes from every person challenging what is and what could be. The most important thing is realising not that we’ve won a medal, but we’ve won for women’s sport and women’s rugby. It’s here to stay and it’s such a privilege for me to be part of it.”
The mechanical engineering graduate’s own future may be uncertain but she has designs of what needs to come next for the women’s game. “I’d love to see stability in the game,” Dow stresses. “We’ve got the ball rolling and I don’t want it to stop. What is so important is the influence we will have towards the grassroots game right now. Rugby has an influence to change anyone’s life. It is quite stereotyped, especially with boys, that it can be a middle-class sport, but it’s not. It really isn’t.
“I want to see rugby move up to the north, I want to see it flourish across the country, because look at what football has done in the women’s game. It’s got so many girls questioning why they are not doing it. What we are trying to prove is that, actually, it’s not just a one-off with football. It’s women’s sport as a whole and it is here to stay. I hope that kids will never be limited by it and we are proving that today.”
