"World Cup heroes return" - PWR: Things you missed from the opening weekend

Saturday saw Trailfinders take on Exeter Chiefs at home, where the visitors came away the victory with the game finishing 12-24. Sale Sharks then played Leicester Tigers at home and bagged their first win of the campaign, as they smashed the Tigers 46-17.

To conclude the opening weekend, Gloucester-Hartpury successfully opened their title defence with a dominant win against last year's finalists Saracens.

The opening weekend of the PWR saw the return of the players who played at this past summer's history-making, record-breaking Women's Rugby World Cup, where the Red Roses were crowned World Champions at the home of English rugby. And what a return to club rugby for so many of these players, who played vital roles this weekend with many of them finding themselves over that white line. In particular, this weekend saw World Champions Sadia Kabeya, Claudia Moloney-MacDonald, Amy Cokayne, Maud Muir, Jade Shekells and Tatyana Heard all scoring tries for their respective clubs.

Overall across the league, attendance was up 183% this weekend compared to last season's opening weekend. The Stoop saw an attendance of just under 3,000 fans and saw a 239% increase compared to the same fixture last year, for the league opener on Friday night.

This growth was shown throughout the league with further improvements on attendance throughout the weekend with Trailfinders having 52% increase on their average overall attendance last season and Gloucester-Hartpury welcoming 4,200 fans to their opening game against Saracens at Kingsholm, an 212% increase on the same fixture last year. The biggest success of this opening weekend goes to Sale Sharks who played Leicester Tigers at a sold out Morson Stadium (Heywood Road) for the first time.

Current title holder and three-peat champions, Gloucester-Hartpury started off their title defence with a bang! They opened their season with a rematch of last year's final facing fellow big dogs, Saracens. Despite being under the new management of Dan Murphy, they continued their success in the league getting themselves a bonus point win against major rivals early on, and sent a clear message to the league, 'New Era Same Dominance'.

The game saw a quick start from Gloucester-Hartpury with World Cup winner Maud Muir powering over the try line just two minutes in. With further first half tries from Kelsey Jones and Jade Shekells, Gloucester grew their lead to 26 points and finished the half yet to concede a point. Their ruthless attack continued scoring with three more tries which saw Kelsey Jones bag her second try of the game and Sam Monaghan and Tatyana Heard join the scoresheet.

A day to forget for the PWR Cup champions who played title holder's Gloucester-Hartpury, away at Kingsholm in the opening weekend of the PWR. A dominant display from home team saw Saracens struggle and spiral into despair. While everything seemed to be flowing for the defending champions, Sarries just couldn't seem to make it work, with a struggle to gain possession and to keep it when they did.

Sloppiness, ill-discipline and lack of physicality saw Sarries head into half time with not a point on the board and a deficit of 26 points. The second half saw some improvement from the London side however, it was too little too late, with Gloucester continuing to score, May Campbell's and Amelia MacDougall's tries were not enough to get Sarries back in the game and the game finished 40-14 to Gloucester-Hartpury.