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The format mirrors the men’s championship exactly. England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales each play five matches, facing every other nation once, with home advantage alternating year on year. The title goes to the nation topping the table, and the same secondary honours apply — a Grand Slam for winning all five, the Triple Crown between the four home nations, and the Wooden Spoon for finishing last.
The tournament is scheduled separately from the men’s championship rather than alongside it, which was a deliberate decision. Running in its own window gives the women’s matches dedicated broadcast slots and standalone crowds instead of being played as curtain-raisers, and it is one of the clearest structural reasons for the competition’s growth.
England’s women’s side, known as the Red Roses, have been the dominant force in the championship for most of the professional era. England was among the first unions to award full-time professional contracts to its women’s players, and that head start in preparation, conditioning and continuity is widely regarded as the main reason for the gap between England and much of the field.
That dominance is both the tournament’s strength and its central problem. It has produced a side capable of filling a national stadium, but it also means the championship can be decided before the final weekend. Other unions have moved towards professional contracts since, and closing that gap is the competition’s main structural challenge. The England women’s rugby team page covers the side in more detail.
The most visible change in the women’s game has been crowd size. England’s marquee home fixtures are now staged at Twickenham rather than at smaller club grounds, and those matches have repeatedly broken attendance records for women’s rugby. A championship fixture at the national stadium is now a genuine event rather than a novelty.
Not every fixture is played there. Smaller home matches are often staged at club grounds around the country, which keeps the tournament accessible in different regions and produces a very different, more intimate atmosphere. Checking the venue before booking travel is essential, because the two experiences are not comparable.
For Twickenham fixtures, the Twickenham seating guide covers how the tiers differ. Twickenham’s transport situation is the main practical challenge of any fixture there. The stadium sits in a residential part of south-west London served principally by Twickenham station, which handles an enormous share of a capacity crowd on foot within a short window. Whitton and Richmond spread the load and are frequently quicker on the way out. Stewarded queuing operates after matches and the walk back routinely takes far longer than the walk in.
The Women’s Six Nations has changed more in the past decade than almost any competition in British sport. It moved from a semi-amateur tournament played in front of small crowds at club grounds to a professional competition with national-stadium fixtures, full broadcast coverage and record attendances.
Three things drove that. Professionalisation gave players the preparation time to raise the standard of the rugby itself. Standalone scheduling gave the matches their own audience rather than treating them as an add-on. And broadcast investment made the tournament visible to people who would never have sought it out.
The competition still faces a genuine competitive imbalance, with a clear gap between the strongest sides and the rest, and closing it depends on other unions matching England and France on professional contracts. But the trajectory of crowds and coverage has been steeply upward, and a Twickenham fixture now sells on its own merits.
Tickets for the Women’s Six Nations remain dramatically more accessible than the men’s equivalent. Where a men’s Twickenham fixture is effectively closed to anyone outside an affiliated club or the RFU membership scheme, women’s matches generally go on open general sale and stay available.
Pricing reflects the same intent, with adult tickets at a fraction of men’s prices and family tickets widely offered. The crowd composition is noticeably different as a result — more families, more first-time attendees, and an atmosphere that is loud but far less partisan. For anyone who has never been to international rugby, this is the easiest and cheapest way to see it at a full-size stadium.
The wider picture of rugby in the capital across the championship window is covered in Six Nations in London, which includes where to watch the fixtures England play away.