Welcome back to the Ruck, the journalist's rugby podcast from The Times and the Sunday Times.

I'm Alfie Reynolds and joined once again by Elgin Alderman following the opening round of the

women's rugby World Cup. Big build up ahead of this one. The tournament is finally here and

Elgin, we are underway. How was the last week or so for you because you were up in Durham

covering all things England,

USA ahead of that opening night last Friday?

It was a bit of a slow build in the days before the opening match and the Red Roses said as

much, both John Mitchell, Zoe Oldcroft, Megan Jones, all talking about the snails pace

of the week, the itching to stop training against each other and finally get a

match underway. And hopefully now that the games are underway, it will track along a bit faster.

Yeah, I mean, interesting week, everyone always talking about these forecasts of what this World Cup

would do for women's sports, talk about the attendance you might have in Sunderland at the

stadium light. And now we've got something tangible to look at as well for the progress of the game.

Yeah, absolutely. So we'll start off on the women's rugby World Cup,

chat about England, the kind of so-called Big Four and who's looking best place to challenge them,

and some of the one-sided matches as well. We've also got a chat coming up with Lewis Reese Zammett.

I went to the Bristol Bears Training Centre last week to have a chat with him following his

return from the NFL and we'll round up matters in the rugby championship as well.

But Elgin, if we can start on Friday night, a record crowd for a women's world cup,

42,000, over 42,000 at the stadium of light.

And as expected, an England victory, pretty one-sided England victory as well.

What did you make of the Red Rose's performance?

...