Rugby World Cup champion Feaunati returns to Sandy Park

Maddie Feaunati is back…and she has a gold medal around her neck! Despite being on a rest fortnight after her exertions in the Rugby World Cup, she popped home to Sandy Park to share her experiences of the last four months in camp with the victorious Red Roses.

First up…a little welfare check to see how our back-rower was faring after four days of solid celebrating.

Feaunati said: “I'm on adrenaline right now! I don't think I've slept more than four hours in the last four days. I'm just running off the excitement!”

The 23-year-old can be forgiven for feeling a little jaded after a clinical Red Roses performance saw them lift the World Cup on Saturday. It marked the culmination of 17 weeks of hard work and being largely cut off from the rest of the world.

She added: “You just get into camp mode. It's so weird because sometimes you leave camp and people are talking to you about how things are going and you're like, oh my God, there's life outside of our bubble! We had a really great team around us, and we enjoyed every minute of it, but yeah, it feels like forever.

“I think the last two nights have been the only two nights of almost the whole year that I haven't spent with my roomie [Morwenna Talling]. I'm literally talking to myself because I don't know what to do because I’ve been around people all the time.”

The Red Roses’ tournament finally kicked off against the USA Eagles on August 22 at the Stadium of Light in Sunderland enabling the squad to put into practice everything they had been training for.

“We'd been talking about the women's Rugby World Cup for so long now and then we were like, oh my God, the World Cup's starting today. It was crazy! And for that to be the opening match, it was insane. It was a great atmosphere, and it just set the tone for the whole tournament.”

Born in Leeds and having spent her formative years in Bath, Feaunati qualified to play for England. Despite heading back to New Zealand when she was nine, she always dreamed of playing for the Red Roses. That dream became a reality when she joined Chiefs in 2023 and got selected for and won the Six Nations the following spring. A WXV tournament victory followed suit before another Six Nations Grand Slam this year. All topped off with the World Cup win five days ago. In terms of achieving your dream…that’s efficient!

Her World Cup journey took her to Sunderland, Northampton, Brighton, Bristol and then Twickenham watched by a total of 240,000 supporters. The tournament sold a total of 445,000 tickets across all eight venues including Sandy Park.

She said: “My favourite part of most days was sitting in the window seat of the bus on the side where people were walking. People would be putting their heads out of their cars, beeping at us. I was waving to them all and people were chasing down the bus.

“The support was out the gate, and it was so cool to experience. No matter where we were, it was always the same vibe. It seemed like the whole country just got behind women's rugby, not just the Red Roses.”

Find out more on Feaunati’s thoughts on the team arrival at the Allianz Stadium, the national anthem, the game itself, the emotions on the final whistle, sharing the moment and the post-match celebrations with her family and her team-mates in the video below.

Feaunati will enjoy time away on holiday next week before heading back into her third season of PWR action at the end of October.

“I'm very excited for the season. Hopefully, we'll have picked up some fans along the way. Just keep enjoying it because it doesn't change. It's the same players playing. We're just all playing together now.”