TWICKENHAM -- Lesser teams would have wilted under such crushing expectation and pressure, but not the Red Roses.
In front of a record crowd, in a tournament which has redefined the limits of the sport, England carried the pre-competition burden of being overwhelming favourites at their home World Cup and delivered.
The strength of their self-belief and unwavering conviction saw them win England's third Women's Rugby World Cup.
There has never been a World Cup like this. Attendance records weren't just broken, they were obliterated. The numbers are staggering -- from social media, to those who have watched the games both in the stadia up and down the land, or off their various screens. The nation has a new group of heroines to sit alongside their Lionesses. And the Red Roses won the sport's biggest prize, while being true to who are they are.
The 2025 England group now sit alongside those from 1994 and 2014 as World Cup immortals. After the heartbreak they suffered three years ago when they lost by three points to the Black Ferns, this was redemption.
Ever since the RFU appointed John Mitchell as head coach, it was about this date --- September 27. The Red Roses' reputation hung on this. They came into the final on a 32-match unbeaten run, with six Grand Slams in a row to their name. But come second in a final in front of a record-shattering crowd of 81,885 and they'd have fallen short.
It's cruel, but that's the standards they hold themselves to, and want to be held to. Everything they've gone through since that day in Auckland back on Nov. 22 in 2022 was geared towards this. They talked frequently about this being their Everest. And once they summitted, and Hollie Davidson blew the full time whistle, they hugged, cried, smiled and exhaled all in a blink of red and white ecstasy.
You could forgive them if their overriding emotion was relief. Wherever they went, the Red Roses could not escape the question of whether they were going to live up to their pre-tournament status as out and out favourites.
From the start of the World Cup where England saw off the USA in Sunderland, to the East Midlands and Northampton where they hammered Samoa.
Then to Brighton where Australia asked questions but lost by 40 points, and then to Bristol for Scotland in the quarterfinals and their nailbiter with France.
They travelled from the tip to the toe of the country, and all the way they sold out stadia, streets and bars were packed with cowboy hats, and rugby fans talked about the Red Roses, with faces painted and crochet tributes to Abby Dow. All the while they had to answer that inescapable question -- could they deliver when it mattered?
While they have a glittering array of tournament-beating backs, and the most dominant pack in world rugby (including arguably the best two front-rows to boot) what really mattered here was cohesion, and managing this pressure.
I hate to keep on coming back to "pressure", but their handling of that was to define whether they could end up winning this thing or not. Essential to all of this was their culture.
Mitchell is big on the personality quality of players both in and out of the team not having their identity defined by whether they've been selected or not. So for the 15 who were picked to start, the eight on the bench, there were the others who would've harboured hopes of featuring.
From the ageless Emily Scarratt in her fifth World Cup who only had 18 minutes, to Marlie Packer who was captain of the team through to the start of this year. Then there are players like Claudia Moloney-MacDonald who would've hoped to have started the final, but found herself out of the 23.
If they were to keep the ship on track, they needed all 32 to fully buy into the collective goal of delivering another World Cup. "It's taken 32 of us to be able to do today," Zoe Aldcroft said.
You could see how much they were appreciated in the celebrations which followed seconds after the full time whistle: the way the incredible Aldcroft jumped into Packer's arms, or how Scarratt - who was the team's watercarrier and took messages from coaches to players - was mobbed by Jess Breach.
While you'll see highlight reels of Kildunne's astonishing solo effort, or the bulldozing efforts of the timeless Alex Matthews, it's the strength of the 32 which has won this.
"Our culture guided us to this," Mitchell said.
All the way through, they talked about earning the right to come back another week, and anchoring themselves in the present.
"I've tried to stay present, the past jumped into my head and the future jumped into my head as well, and I gave myself a few upper cuts and tried to stay present," Mitchell said of this week.
This final looked to be one decided by the thinnest margins. Canada had arguably been the in-form team through the tournament. England had racked up massive wins but hadn't quite hit their best. Canada also had the world's best player in Sophie de Goede - it was all incredibly tense and finely poised.
Canada started the better of the two teams and scored early on through Asia Hogan-Rochester. But from there England took control. Ellie Kildunne scored a wonderous solo effort where she danced around at least five players, and this was soon followed up by efforts moulded by the whole group of forwards and their irrepressible rolling maul with Amy Cokayne and Matthews scoring.
The 21-7 lead at half time could've been greater but for another score disallowed for an offside, but England gave it scant thought, with Abbie Ward burrowing over after 50 minutes.
Then came the sticky patch as Hannah Botterman was sin-binned for a tip tackle, and Canada finally clicked with Hogan-Rochester scoring her second. Canada had the chance for another, but knocked-on a handful of metres out - cue the most monumental exhale from those with red roses on their shirts.
And from there, as England's bench came on, the wheels clicked back into gear, and the machine broke back into life. Matthews grabbed her second with 10 minutes left and from there, England knew they had won it.
"I could not believe that we have done this. We have spoken about inspiring the nation and putting women's rugby on the map and honestly, I think we have done this throughout the whole tournament," Aldcroft said. "I know those girls can put a performance like that out and we had belief in every single one of those girls. We had no doubt in our minds that we were going to come out today and do this job."
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What a summer for women's sport in England, but also what a moment for young girls and boys to be looking for inspirational sporting role models. This is a group who talk openly about grief, about life, about overcoming self-doubt and adversity, of the difficulties they had breaking through into what for some was a nascent sport, while remaining unapologetically themselves.
Each have their own stories about what led them to having this medal around their neck. From near-death experiences, to devastating personal loss, to narrowly avoiding injury-ending careers, to also prevailing for so long despite the system rather than because of it.
But as the Red Roses walked around Twickenham holding the World Cup, there were tens of thousands of fans young and old taking snapshots in their mind of the moment. When the pressure counted, England delivered.
That's legacy.