Give world time to match England crowds - Cokayne

WXV: New Zealand v England

Venue: Langley Event Centre Date: Sunday 6 October Kick-off: 21:00 BST

Coverage: Live on BBC iPlayer, BBC Sport website and app

England hooker Amy Cokayne says expectations of crowd numbers in the global game need to be kept in check despite the Red Roses' runaway growth in attendance figures.

England won their WXV1 opener against the United States on Sunday with only a small fraction of the seats in the 54,000-capacity BC Place venue in Vancouver occupied.

Local organisers say that just under 4,000 people attended across a triple-header day which also included hosts Canada's win over France and Ireland's upset of world champions New Zealand.

"My first cap was in front of a thousand people I think," said Cokayne, who made her England debut in the win over Italy in 2015.

"I think we have to give the rest of the world a bit of leeway.

"We have these goggles on that everyone should have 50,000 at their games, but I think people forget that it was only a few years ago that our record in England was 5,000.

"The rest of the world is slightly behind, but we can give them the patience to grow."

England's Grand Slam-clinching victory over France at Twickenham's Allianz Stadium in April 2023 was watched by 58,498 people - a record for a women's rugby match.

It is far from a one-off either. Crowds of 48,778 and 41,523 attended the wins over Ireland and New Zealand at the same venue earlier this year.

However, interest in England has risen sharply in recent years. Five years ago, the record attendance for a Red Roses' game outside a Rugby World Cup was only just over 10,000.

WXV1 - the top level of a three-tiered competition - continues in Langley, a city on the outskirts of Vancouver, this weekend.

The 6,600-capacity Willoughby Stadium will host England's match against New Zealand, the last team to beat the Red Roses when they won the Rugby World Cup final in November 2022.

Cokayne says England need to improve considerably from the disjointed performance against the United States if they are to extend their winning streak to 19 matches.

"We need to be quite a lot better to be honest," the 28-year-old said.

"We were really disappointed with our basics. There was no flow to the game and that was probably because there were so many stops due to knock-ons or general errors and penalties.

"If we can cut out those soft errors, allow the game to flow and get into a rugby contest with New Zealand, that will be a lot better for us."