Champions Gloucester-Hartpury will face Saracens in a re-run of final season’s closing on the opening weekend of the 2025-26 Premiership Ladies’s Rugby marketing campaign.
The 2 groups will meet at Kingsholm on Sunday, 26 October.
Gloucester-Hartpury closed out their third successive title with a 34-19 victory on the Stonex Stadium in March.
Their success drew them degree on PWR titles with Saracens – each groups have gained the competitors 3 times because it started eight years in the past.
The primary spherical of motion begins on Friday, 24 October when Harlequins host Loughborough Lightning on the Stoop.
That match shall be proven reside on BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport web site and app as a part of a brand new deal between PWR and BBC Sport.
With TNT Sports activities additionally exhibiting one recreation from every spherical and the opposite two matches being streamed on YouTube, the forthcoming marketing campaign would be the first from which each PWR recreation is broadcast reside.
Saracens play London rivals Harlequins, who completed third within the 2024-25 desk, within the second spherical of fixtures, earlier than taking up Bristol Bears, who have been fourth, within the third.
After this 12 months’s closing was introduced ahead to maximise England’s preparations for the Rugby World Cup, the 2025-26 showpiece returns to a extra acquainted slot within the calendar on Sunday, 28 July.
The beginning of the 2025-26 season has been pushed again three weeks to permit star gamers to recuperate and be reintegrated after the World Cup, which concludes on 27 September.
Organisers hope the momentum from the event, which has offered greater than 300,000 tickets already, can increase the nine-team high tier.
“The upcoming Ladies’s Rugby World Cup presents PWR with an enormous alternative to boost the attention of girls’s rugby and our unimaginable athletes,” mentioned Genevieve Shore, the league’s govt chair.
“When placing collectively the fixtures, we have been aware of needing to start out our season with a bang and maintain these new followers engaged. The early weeks of the season are full of blockbuster matchups and can undoubtedly present a showcase of elite expertise and top-quality rugby.
“The expansion of attendances at PWR matches is correct on the high of our precedence checklist for this coming season and we’re actually hopeful that after a house World Cup, individuals will head alongside to our golf equipment and expertise the joy of a recreation in particular person.”
