England are 17 matches into the Utrecht Shield run. Here is how they got here and what is at stake.
The record books • Utrecht Shield
England are 17 matches into the Utrecht Shield run. Here is how they got here and what is at stake.
They lost it in a World Cup final. While they were locked out, Australia and Canada claimed the title for the very first time. Now England are one win from their own record and three from the greatest run in the shield's history.
At the 2025 Women's Rugby World Cup semi final, I bumped into Vivienne Brodier. Twenty five thousand people in the ground. Most of them walked straight past her. I doubt many would have known her foundational role in the game we were all there to watch. I did. Vivienne was the fullback for France in Utrecht in 1982, the first ever women's rugby international. She was the first person to hold the Utrecht Shield.
I had the shield with me. I got it into her hands. And standing there, I could draw a straight line from Vivienne through every woman who had held it since, through the great Black Ferns sides of the 2000s, all the way to the England number 15 who would be running out that day. Same position, 43 years apart, connected by an unbroken thread that has been running through women's rugby since the very beginning.
No governing body created that thread. No official decided it should exist. It just does. It has always been there. We just need to tell the story.
Right now, the story is England. Seventeen matches and counting. One win from their own all time record. Three wins from the greatest run in the shield's history. And all of it started with a World Cup final they lost.
Where the run really begins: New Zealand, 12th November 2022
England went into the 2022 Women's Rugby World Cup final as Utrecht Shield holders. They had carried it for 16 matches, one of the longest runs any nation had ever put together. They played New Zealand in Auckland. They lost 34-31. The Black Ferns took the shield.
That loss ended England's run and started a two year wait to get it back. In those two years, England never crossed paths with whoever held the shield. It passed through New Zealand, France, Australia, and Canada without England getting a look at it. Their moment came at WXV1 in October 2024 when they finally faced Canada, who held it, and won it back 21-12.
The two years England spent locked out
This is the part of the story that I love telling, because it shows you exactly why the Utrecht Shield is different to any other measure of how good a team is.
After the World Cup final, New Zealand held the shield for five more matches. Then at WXV1 in October 2023, France beat them 18-17 and took it. One week later, Australia beat France 29-20. The Wallaroos had never held the Utrecht Shield in the title's entire history. Not once across four decades of women's rugby. They had it now, for two matches, for the first time ever.
Then in May 2024, Canada beat Australia 33-14 in the Pacific Four Series. Canada had never held it either. They beat New Zealand, they beat France, they held it for four matches before England beat them 21-12 at WXV1 on 12th October 2024 to get their hands back on it.
Think about what happened in those two years. The Utrecht Shield passed through four nations. Two of them, Australia and Canada, claimed it for the first time in the title's 43-year history. England, the dominant force in women's rugby across the same period, never crossed paths with whoever held it until October 2024. When they finally did, they took it back.
That is the shield. You can be the best team in the world and still have nothing to show for it if you never get your moment. The best teams don't always hold it. But the best teams hold it for the longest. And England are building something that looks like it could go a very long way.
Seventeen matches since
Since getting it back in October 2024, England have taken the shield through a summer tour, a World Cup, and now into the 2026 Six Nations. They have defended it against 17 challengers across three competitions on two continents. The closest anyone has come was France in the 2025 Six Nations, who lost 43-42 at Twickenham. They have beaten France three times in this run alone.
Every single one of those 17 matches, the shield was on the line. Every player who has run out for England since October 2024 has been part of this, whether they are still in the squad or not. And the player stories within that are only just beginning to be told. I think of the data that sits behind someone like Scarratt. How many times she held the shield across her entire career. What her win percentage was as a holder. What the full picture looks like. That story exists in the data. When I can connect individual careers to the shield at that level, the whole thing comes alive in a completely different way. We are getting there.
The player who started this run and never stopped being part of it
Emily Scarratt, known to everyone in the game as Scaz, was on the pitch for match one of this run. England beat Canada 21-12 at WXV1 on 12th October 2024. That was the day England got the shield back.
What makes that even more remarkable is what Scarratt had been through to get there. In 2023 she had a bulging disc in her neck that threatened her spinal cord. She needed disc replacement surgery and spent 13 months recovering. She missed the entire inaugural WXV1 tournament in 2023, the one where the shield was passing through New Zealand, France, Australia for the first time, and Canada. While the shield was on its journey without England, Scarratt was working her way back from surgery that could have ended her career.
She came back. She was part of the squad that got the shield back. She played through to match nine of this run, England's World Cup opener against the USA in August 2025. Then she retired, a World Cup winner for the second time, the first English player of any kind to compete at five World Cups, and England's all time leading points scorer with 754 international points across 119 caps.
The run she helped start is still going. And here is the part of this story that I love most: Scaz has not left it. She is now backs coach at Loughborough Lightning and in a specialist coaching and mentoring role with the RFU, working with the next generation of England players. The same run she was part of as a player, she is now connected to as a coach. The thread keeps running. She is still in it.
Every player who has appeared in these 17 matches is part of this run, whether they are still in the squad or not. The shield does not forget. Scarratt's name is woven into this from the very first match, and it stays there no matter what comes next.
What is left to chase
England's own all time record is 18 matches, set between June 1993 and February 1997. Four years of defending it across the Home Nations and a World Cup. France ended it 17-15 at Northampton in February 1997. One more win and England equal that.
The all time record across the shield's entire history belongs to New Zealand. The Black Ferns ran 20 consecutive matches between May 2002 and November 2009, across two World Cups and five years of international rugby. England ended it with a 10-3 win in November 2009. To equal that record, England need three more wins. To own it outright, four.
Italy are next.
Why this matters beyond the numbers
I have been doing this for a long time. Maintaining the data, telling the stories, turning up at stadiums with the shield, getting it into people's hands. I do most of it lying on my back beside a child going to sleep, or on dog walks in the morning before work. There is no team. There is no office. There is a spreadsheet and a deep, stubborn love of rugby.
And what keeps me going is moments like the one with Vivienne Brodier. The idea that a thread has been running through women's rugby since 1982 and most of the people who held it never knew. Every time England defend the shield now, they are adding another entry to something that connects all the way back to that first match in Utrecht. Every player in this squad who runs out with the shield on the line is part of that story whether they know it or not.
We just need to keep telling it until everyone does.
The best teams don't always hold the Utrecht Shield. But the best teams hold it for the longest. England are building something that could go all the way to the top of the all time list. Italy are next.
The Utrecht Shield has been running since the Netherlands hosted France in 1982. Every match, every holder, every moment of the thread is tracked right here. If this run has got you gripped, you can own a piece of the physical shield, cut from the same wood with a certificate tracing the lineage back to Vivienne Brodier and that very first game. And if you want your name on it permanently, engravings are open now.