Talking Women’s Rugby, Allyship and World Cup 2025 with Nick Heath

“Allyship in every form is important.” That’s the view of Nick Heath, Rugby Union journalist, broadcaster and Rugby Union Writers Club chairman with over a decade of experience and a true champion of the women’s game.

We were speaking the day before Heath’s next assignment, pitchside coverage of the Premiership Women’s Rugby clash between Harlequins and Bristol that featured the world’s best player, Ellie Killdunne and the world’s most-followed player, Ilona Maher.

The game was at the Stoop, in front of six and a half thousand people, a staggering figure compared to how things were when Heath first started out.

Heath grew up in a rugby-mad family, going with his father, who was a community referee, to whichever game was the hottest ticket around South-West London that weekend.

“When I was growing up, my sister played rugby at university. She was one of the first people to start the team at Sussex in the late 80’s,” Heath explains.

“My cousin Emily also played at Marlow and Henley. She knew the likes of Rocky Clark and Danielle Waterman. So, I kind of knew women who played the game. And respected the fact that they did.”

Heath trained as an actor and didn’t start in the rugby media landscape until his late 20s, beginning his journey with a small podcast.

“I sort of knew some of the RFU media team, and I got a call from Simon Ward, who couldn’t do some live-stream commentary, so I was asked to do two or three of the women’s games,” Heath added.

“I remember thinking, I don’t want to do this and just be seen as the bloke that’s going to use it as a stepping-stone to get elsewhere.

“If I’m going to do this, I want to be in this space and pay it the respect and time it deserves.

“It was the early careers of the likes of Emily Scarratt, Mo Hunt, and even Sarah Hunter, and I remember doing a game where I’d been critical, at the least. Not just fanboying.”

Heath explained that some of the players approached him after the game about his comments, and despite being ready to defend what he had said, the players praised him for treating them with professionalism.

“The inference was that it felt like they were saying: ‘You can stay in this space with us,’ which was amazing.”

With a home World Cup on the horizon this summer, 2025 has the potential to be a pivotal year in the development of women’s rugby, with a massive 220,000 tickets already sold for the tournament.

Furthermore, since the announcement that Maher would be joining the PWR, several clubs have seen record attendances, with interest in the women’s game hitting a peak the like of which it has never seen before.

“When you’ve been as part of the rise of women’s rugby as I feel like I have been over the last decade, it’s sort of a bit like going from the Stone Age to discovering electricity,” Heath said, sharing his view on the changes he’s seen.

“But it’s not suddenly flying, and I don’t believe that any World Cup result is going to take it there. I think it will step it up, no doubt.

“There’s a lot of paralleling the potential for what this will do for the Red Roses in the same way it did for the Lionesses.

“But football is massive, so when you take rugby, which is a much smaller sport, and women’s rugby is even smaller still, it’s just not comparable.

“In terms of their own metrics, could it go up 200, maybe 300%?  Yeah, absolutely, it could. And a win will be really important. But are we arriving at some promised land? No, not necessarily.

“We’ll be sat here in a year, looking forward to the Six Nations with the excitement that a lot more people in the world know about the women’s game and know about the stars of the teams that are going to take part.

“But will we be swimming in millions more commercial revenue? I don’t think so.”

Whilst Heath doesn’t believe this tournament will move the dial much financially, he does feel it can have more significant impacts.

“I think there’ll be a recognition of the value that rugby has as a sport and a game for all sizes, which I think is as ever relevant for women’s body positivity. Being strong is good.

“That’s where rugby can have a real opportunity to breakthrough, perhaps a little more than football did.

“Because there’s a place for tall girls, strong girls, skinny girls, wider girls, everybody. So I think it has a real opportunity on that front.”

But for all the advances the game has made, the consistent need is a more invested media, and in order for that to grow, Heath feels the key is that allyship across the board is desperately needed.

“I’m a big believer that allyship in every form is really important.

“If someone else from outside a certain group is able to say: ‘This thing is s**t for those people, or we should be doing better for these people,’ then that’s far more powerful because it doesn’t come with those biases.

“I like being an ally to the women’s game and being able to stand up and say that certain things aren’t good enough. It’s about representing and speaking up when you can.”

After almost an hour of chatting, I was eager to know one last thing. As a person who has seen women’s rugby evolve so much, what does he want the future of the game to look like?

“Currently, the women’s game is much more accessible, but equally, it’s because they’re promoting it just as much as playing.

“That will change if the commercial power is there. If that happens, then the infrastructure will be in place to do the promotion. Until that arrives, it’s going to have to be the people who’ve got skin in the game doing it.”