Women’s Six Nations 2026: Higgins hopes Aviva Stadium could be Ireland’s regular home

Growing up, Eve Higgins’ Six Nations tradition was a trip to Ashbourne to watch the women’s game on Fridays before heading to the Aviva Stadium for the men with her father.

While crowds flocked to Dublin 4 for the men, attendances at the County Meath venue the previous evening were not at the same height.

But as women’s rugby in Ireland has grown in stature, so has the ‘green wave’ of support, and this Sunday represents a significant milestone as, for the first time, a standalone women’s game will be held at the Lansdowne Road venue.

In 2014, a women’s Six Nations game against Italy acted as a curtain-raiser for the men’s equivalent, but this weekend’s final round against Scotland (14:30 BST) sold 28,000 tickets, tripling the already record 9,206 fans who attended the game against Ireland on April 1. Dexcom Stadium in Galway.

It is part of a trend that has seen interest in the women’s game grow rapidly and Ireland’s opening game against England in this year’s Championship drew a record 77,120 at the Aviva Stadium in Twickenham.

Higgins described the prospect of playing in front of a record home crowd as “very special” but hoped it would be “the first of many”.

“When we heard, firstly, that 20,000 tickets had been sold, it was huge because we knew we were going to beat our record crowd,” the 26-year-old center told BBC Sport NI.

“Even the fact that we’ve beaten record crowds in six of those races, but to do it again in three would be very special.

“We talked three or four years ago that we wanted to play games at the Aviva, but we wanted to do it at a time so we could fill the stadium because we didn’t want to play in an empty stadium.

“The fact that our first show at this stadium will be in front of a record crowd of over 28,000 is fantastic and it shows you what a performance can do. We want to put on a show for the crowd this weekend.”