Women’s Rugby World Cup 2017

The 2017 Women’s Rugby World Cup was the eighth edition of the Women’s Rugby World Cup and was held in Ireland in August 2017. New Zealand became the 2017 champions by beating England 41–32 in the final on 26 August. Matches were held in Dublin and Belfast. The pool stages were held at University College Dublin with the semi finals and finals held at Queen’s University and Kingspan Stadium in Belfast.

The tournament took place three rather than four years after the previous Women’s Rugby World Cup because World Rugby wanted to move away from clashing with other events.

The 2017 tournament set attendance records for a Women’s World Cup. The tournament drew 45,412 fans over 30 matches. The final was played in front of a crowd of 17,115, and the pool matches sold out.

This proved to be the final edition of the tournament under the “Women’s Rugby World Cup” name. On 21 August 2019, World Rugby announced that all future World Cups, whether for men or women, would be officially titled as the “Rugby World Cup”, distinguished only by year and not by sex or gender. As such, the 2022 edition in New Zealand will bear the title of “Rugby World Cup 2022”.