Morwenna Talling on Yorkshire's tradition for producing world class women's rugby players and her legacy hopes for 2025 Rugby World Cup

That is the belief, and hope, of one of the four Yorkshirewoman hoping to play a prominent role in the host nation’s bid for glory.

Morwenna Talling of Ryedale who learned the game in the junior ranks of Malton and Norton RUFC and then West Park Leeds, had, like so many Yorkshire girls before her - two of whom would go on to be named the world’s best player - to fly the coup to progress her career.

Where Zoe Aldcroft, the 2021 world player of the year, had to leave Scarborough for Gloucester and the flying full-back recently bestowed with that honour, Ellie Kildunne, swapped Keighley for London, Talling traded North Yorkshire for Loughborough when the time came to make a career out of playing rugby.

But the 22-year-old second-row forward was the first to buck the trend last summer when she left Loughborough Lightning for Sale Sharks.

If the 2025 Rugby World Cup is to truly deliver next year, it will not just mean Talling, Aldcroft, Kildunne et al lifting the trophy at Allianz Stadium on Saturday, September 27, but for there to be a lasting legacy throughout the country, especially the north.

“Rugby in the north is struggling a little bit,” Talling tells The Yorkshire Post.

“We need more people to come up to our clubs, for there to be more clubs to go into. We’ve got some really good young talent coming through

“But it’s difficult when we’re losing people to the south.”

Talling left Loughborough for Sale in June 2023 in part to grow her game in different areas and challenge herself, but also to be closer to home.

She didn’t have many options - Sale are the only one of nine clubs in the Women’s Premiership in the north of England, their closest rivals being Leicester.

West Park Leeds, who helped Talling, Aldcroft, Kildunne and a fourth member of England’s World Cup runners-up in 2022 in Tatyana Heard on their way to the highest level of the game, last applied for - and failed - to get into the elite tier back in 2020.

Given their pedigree for helping develop women’s rugby players, and the amount of world class players who come from Yorkshire, it is an anomaly that there is nowhere in this county to accommodate such talent.

“It’s crazy how many people have come from Yorkshire, with Tatyana Heard as well,” says Talling. “We can routinely have four out of a 15-strong England squad that are from pretty much the same place.”

And it is filling that void where Talling believes next year’s World Cup can have the most impact. “Having a good number of games up in the north will definitely grow the game up here and push a few of the clubs to try and get their women’s teams better, stronger, grow more, and push on,” says Talling, with the likes of World Cup contenders New Zealand and Canada featuring in the half-dozen games at the York Community Stadium.

“It was very cool to see York involved. It’s a well-known city across the country, but to have something of that magnitude coming to the city is really cool.

“A lot of my family have to travel long distances to come and watch me play but just to be able to have the Rugby World Cup on their doorstep is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

The tournament is also an opportunity to enhance the recruitment pool that rugby pulls young girls from.

Talling, like Aldcroft and Kildunne, got into the game through her family, her older and younger brothers were already playing at Malton and Norton when she joined the Under-13s girls team.

But a World Cup in home stadiums and on television screens, not to mention one that sees the Red Roses going all the way, can widen that recruitment pool beyond the family boundaries.

“Girls getting into rugby because of their family is great, but as soon as you go away from that group you need something to attract the rest,” offers Talling.

“Having it around the country will be massive for that, having one up in the north of England, some at York, is very beneficial.

“When I was growing up there wasn’t many people I could look up to, but since Zoe won the world player of the year, it makes you realise something like that is possible. And then you add Ellie into that from this year and it just makes it even more achievable. And that translates to everyone, girls and boys, around Yorkshire.”

Of her own journey, Talling speaks very fondly of her time at Malton and Norton and then with West Park.

She had to commute along the A64 after leaving Malton following her final Under-15s years to the Bramhope-based club because her local club no longer had the numbers or the ability to sate her growing appetite and talent for the game.

“Malton is very family-orientated, my older brother played there, my younger brother played there, it was where I started,” said Talling, who captained the North of England and Yorkshire girls teams, having also played hockey and netball.

“But West Park massively helped me on my journey. I had to leave Malton because of numbers, so to be able to go to West Park and play with girls who were in the Yorkshire squad at that time progressed how I wanted to play.

“It was there that I met Bryony Field, Emma Hardy (players in year above and now both at Saracens) who helped convince me to go down to Loughborough to continue my career there.”

She made her Premiership debut as a 17-year-old in 2019 and was still a teenager when England first came calling. Talling made her Red Roses debut in November 2020 and was part of the squad two years later for the World Cup in New Zealand.

“It was my first World Cup, I was just coming back from a big injury so to just be a part of it was very cool,” says Talling, who has won 18 caps.

“Obviously getting to the final was amazing, but losing gives us a lot of hunger.”

Of her own development, Talling adds: “I didn’t expect anything going into the World Cup last time, but I think this time I’ve grown as a player and I’m hoping to get into that 15 for this World Cup. I’ve always had lineout as a main area to work on and I think I’ve put myself into the position of being a strong lineout option for England. Athletic ability is something they’ve pushed us on. The World Cup is huge, but right now my focus is Sale and then the Six Nations. I’m just taking it day by day.”