After a year of blood, sweat and tears, the teams finally arrived in Cardiff to compete at the first Women’s Rugby World Cup on 4 April 1991.
The celebration kicked off at Cardiff Arms Park and former Wales captain Liza Burgess remembers it well.
“The opening ceremony was an incredibly special day, all the teams were in their tracksuits with their placards,” she said.
“It was an opportunity to play against teams we’d never seen, women from all over the world, from different cultures. I’d never met people from Russia, I’d never met people from New Zealand.
“We love singing, New Zealand love singing and we were trying to outdo each other with our songs. We had a lot of fun and laughter.”
Italy’s Morri said it was a “super emotional” moment.
“We were really in the state of mind that we were athletes for the first time. We just looked at each other saying we exist as a community, we were feeling like pioneers,” Morri said.
While it was an exciting time for the players, the work did not stop for the Richmond four, with two having their hands even fuller than usual.
Griffin and Forsyth had both recently given birth, while Dorrington was involved in the action, playing for England.
“We were quite stressed and not sleeping, we were dealing with problems the whole time, making sure that everything was happening,” said Griffin.
“By that time we were all exhausted. Debs and I were working 20 hours a day. I just remember feeling incredibly lonely and left out,” said Cooper.
“At six o’clock in the morning I was at my desk and I’d get to bed at 2am. By the final we were absolutely hanging.”
Twenty one games were played over eight days and USA lived up to their favourites tag by beating England 19-6 in the final in front of 3,000 fans.
“All those teams were so incredibly elated at what happened,” said Forsyth.
“It was never a question of, ‘Is this going to happen?’ An obstacle would come up and you’d go around it, you’d swerve it.”
