Ellie Kildunne Opens Up on Feeling Alone After Rugby World Cup Win

Scoring the opening try in a World Cup final in front of a packed Twickenham is the kind of moment most athletes spend entire careers chasing. For Ellie Kildunne, getting there proved the easy part.

The Harlequins full-back played a pivotal, game-changing role in England's Rugby World Cup triumph in September, but concedes that what followed was more than a hint of a comedown. In a candid reflection on life after the tournament, Kildunne admitted to feeling "really alone" once the celebrations faded, describing the experience in terms that cut through the trophy-and-ticker-tape narrative: a wedding followed by a divorce.

"The Rugby World Cup final was the biggest high of my career. I had a couple of weeks off and then it was the club season," she said, laying bare just how abruptly the scaffolding of a World Cup campaign is dismantled.

England beat Canada 33-13 at Allianz Stadium on September 27, 2025, winning the nation's third World Cup title. Kildunne scored the opening try inside eight minutes, beating several defenders with a combination of footwork, balance, and pace that had defined her throughout the tournament. In the immediate aftermath, she described the win as something that would take a long time to sink in, finding herself getting emotional in silent moments, whether driving in her car or sitting alone over dinner.

But those quiet emotional flashes were only the beginning. The structured world of a tournament squad, with its daily schedules, shared purpose, and constant team contact, disappeared almost overnight. What replaces it for elite women's rugby players is far less clear.

Kildunne was the first female rugby player to be shortlisted for BBC Sports Personality of the Year, eventually finishing runner-up to Rory McIlroy at the ceremony in Salford. She was turned into a Barbie doll, became an HSBC ambassador, and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Sport from St Mary's University London at a ceremony alongside teammates Jess Breach, Abi Burton, and Rosie Galligan on November 5, 2025. From the outside, it looked like an unbroken victory lap. Internally, it was something considerably more complicated.

The pattern Kildunne describes, of high achievement followed by disorientation and emotional isolation, is well-documented in sports psychology but rarely spoken about by those living through it, and almost never by those who have won. The adrenaline and structure that sustain players through months of intense preparation evaporate at the final whistle. The team disperses back to clubs. Coaches move on to the next campaign. For Kildunne, the question of what players find when they return home after the biggest moment of their careers matters, not just for herself, but for the growing number of professional women in the sport for whom these pressures are an increasingly mainstream reality.

The Premiership Women's Rugby competition returned with more broadcasting coverage than ever before, and England were set to break further attendance records in the Six Nations. The sport is growing at pace, but whether the institutional support available to players scales alongside that growth remains an open question, one Kildunne's honesty has now placed firmly in public view.