When England get their NatWest Six Nations campaign underway in Italy today it will mark the start of what I believe is one of the most important tournaments in the competition’s history. England will be confident they can win a second successive Grand Slam – and I think they have every chance – but beyond that, this is a tournament where we will see whether the huge steps taken by the sport in 2017 were the start of something or simply a one-off.

Even a year ago I would not have imagined a women’s rugby international being broadcast live on terrestrial television at primetime on a Saturday night, let alone that it would be watched by 2.6 million viewers. England may have come up just short in that World Cup Final against New Zealand but along with the success of the England women’s cricket and football teams it demonstrated to me quite how far we have come.

Now the challenge is to build...