Welcome back to the Ruck, the journalist's rugby podcast from the Times and the Sunday Times with one more game to go.

The Women's World Cup final this weekend. England facing Canada. What a tantalising match that is.

An incredible story for Canada to even get to this point, England with a chance to exercise the demons of World Cups past.

It's Alfie here alongside Elgin sat on the banks of the

River Thames, Elgin. What a lovely setting this is. It's a lovely sunny day and on our walk over here

you even walked past a crab which we weren't expecting but hopefully we'll see no cramming across from

either team on Saturday at Twickenham. Yeah that was not a joke. A live crab on the path here. I have no idea how it got here, but we are at the Lensbury, which is where England are going to be doing their media later on today. We've just been walking through the hotel and seen plenty of World Rugby execs, all of the Red Roses team, the backroom staff. It feels busy. It feels like we're in World Cup final week.

Yeah, all of World Rugby is here, as we've seen. It's a big week for just rugby in England.

We've got Gallagher Prem starting on Thursday. The fixtures leaving that Saturday clear for the bronze

final first and then the World Cup final at 4pm at Twickenham. So it's a big weekend for men's women's

rugby in England and yeah, greatly lookingham so it's a big weekend for men's women's rugby in england and yeah

greatly looking forward to it massive weekend for rugby as you say we'll get into all of that

we'll be chatting to rocky clark later in the podcast second most capped england player of all

time she was the first until sarah hunter came along and stole her record but particularly elgin i really, I enjoyed chatting to Rocky because it's really good, I think, to speak to Red Roses of the Past in a week like this because of how significant, as you say, it is not just for rugby in England, but for women's rugby in England and the Red Rose. It's a really special day, I would imagine it's going to be on Saturday for all of those that have worn the Red Roses jersey previously. From every former Red Rose I've spoken to, they tell me that the WhatsApp groups are always vibrant, but they've been especially vibrant the last few weeks as people have been travelling all around England, watching their team. You've got people overseas as well in New Zealand, red roses all around the world. And the thing

about these red rose heritage is, you know, all these players have their heritage numbers. They know

where they are in the pecking order, the pantheon of all these red roses that have come before that

are in the team now. Because women's international rugby is only not even, well, just over 40 years old. It means that the entire span of it has

been within sort of one lifetime, one generation. So they are just spread all over the world,

enjoying this World Cup in various different ways. So they'll be feeling Saturday and the occasion

that it will be more than, more than anyone really, because they know what it was like 30 years ago

when things were pay to play or driving around England looking for fixtures, not being allowed

in clubhouses, all the various stories you hear about what it was like for women playing rugby

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