Zackary before the PWR final: Trailfinders seek an answer to Saracens, the opponent that has not let them get close so far
Kate Zackary is not trying to embellish the hardest part of the story ahead of the Premiership Women’s Rugby final. The American international and one of the key Trailfinders Women players admitted, according to the PWR announcement of 24 June 2026, that Saracens have so far been an opponent resembling “kryptonite” for her team. In six head-to-head matches since the club from Ealing entered the top tier of English women’s club rugby, Trailfinders have still not beaten Saracens. The final carries additional weight because this year’s two league meetings ended in convincing Saracens victories, 57-5 on Trailfinders’ ground in November 2025 and 80-14 at StoneX Stadium on 7 June 2026, according to the official competition schedule and results. Still, Zackary ahead of the final match does not sound like a player resigned to the role of outsider, but like someone who believes that the difference between an unpleasant history and a historic step forward is often just one well-played match.
The final is scheduled for Sunday, 28 June 2026, at Twickenham Stoop stadium in London, and according to Premiership Women’s Rugby’s organisational information, kick-off is planned for 15:00 local time. PWR has billed the match as a clash between Saracens and Trailfinders Women, the conclusion of a season in which only one team can become champion, but the sporting context goes far beyond the fight for the trophy itself. Saracens enter the final as a club with a deep winning legacy, a stable core of players and a habit of playing big matches. Trailfinders, on the other hand, arrive as the most unexpected story of the play-offs, a club that only in its third season among the elite managed to knock out defending champions Gloucester-Hartpury and reach the final for the first time. That is why this finale is read not only as a London duel, but also as a test of how quickly the hierarchy of women’s professional rugby in England can change.
Six defeats that explain the scale of the challenge
Premiership Women’s Rugby, in its preview of the story about Zackary, states that Saracens have won all six head-to-head matches against Trailfinders since the London club from Ealing entered the league. That fact creates a clear psychological backdrop for the final: Trailfinders do not only have to beat the team from north London, but also their own run of failures against an opponent that has so far punished them regularly. Zackary therefore used the comparison with Superman as a way to explain the state in which her team awaits the match. According to PWR, she said Saracens had been their “kryptonite”, but added that even Superman eventually finds a solution. In sporting terms, that sentence sums up what Trailfinders must prove: that the results from the league part of the season are not the final verdict, but material from which a plan for the final can be drawn.
Zackary, according to the same source, particularly highlighted Saracens’ continuity. She stressed that the club has kept a stable core of players and staff for years, which in a league in which many teams go through coaching and personnel changes can have decisive value. Such stability explains why Saracens rarely look lost even when a match slips into a chaotic rhythm, as happened in the semi-final against Exeter Chiefs. Trailfinders have been a different project this season: according to PWR, Barney Maddison’s team had to integrate a larger number of new players, including England captain Meg Jones, while another PWR text stated that the summer rebuild included 19 new signings, among them players from New Zealand and Canada. That means the final pits two development logics against each other: Saracens’ proven continuity and Trailfinders’ accelerated construction.
Trailfinders from a late awakening to the biggest stage
Trailfinders’ path to the final was not straightforward. According to TNT Sports’ table for the 2025/26 season, Trailfinders finished the league part in fourth place with 46 points, with seven wins, two draws and seven defeats. Gloucester-Hartpury were first with 73 points, Saracens second with 71, and Exeter Chiefs third with 56, which shows that Trailfinders did not enter the play-offs as the dominant team of the regular part, but as a side that found form at the most important moment. Zackary described for PWR that the perception of the team’s real capabilities began to change only in the final third of the season. As a turning point she singled out the 21-17 away win against Harlequins immediately before the break for the Guinness Women’s Six Nations, because that was when the team first more clearly felt that it could join the fight with the best.
After that match came an even more important signal. In round 17, according to PWR’s review, Trailfinders beat Gloucester-Hartpury 41-39 and ended the leading team’s run of 14 consecutive league victories. The same announcement stated that this result secured Trailfinders a place in the play-offs, and Meg Jones was named player of the match. That triumph was not an isolated flash: two weeks later Trailfinders again brought down Gloucester-Hartpury, this time in the semi-final, and on away ground. PWR described the semi-final as a 29-26 victory that ended the reign of the three-time champions, with the scorers for Trailfinders being Maya Montiel, Emma Uren and Isla Norman-Bell, who scored two tries. For a club that, according to PWR’s profile, entered the top tier in 2023, such a run of wins over the defending champions represented a dramatic accelerated rise.
The semi-finals showed two different kinds of resilience
The semi-final weekend gave the final a clear narrative balance. Trailfinders in Gloucester had to defend a minimal lead under pressure from the hosts, who in the second half reduced the gap to only three points. According to PWR’s report, Gloucester-Hartpury attacked strongly in the closing stages, but Trailfinders held out and reached the PWR final for the first time in history. It is especially important that Barney Maddison’s team in that match showed an ability different from the one seen in earlier heavy defeats by Saracens: it was not enough only to attack; the match had to be closed out in moments when the opponent had momentum and the support of the stands. Maddison, in a separate PWR text, stressed that the team had gradually built understanding and connection during the season, and that precisely this process had put the group in a good position for the final.
Saracens reached the finale by a different route, but also through a match that demanded durability. According to PWR’s official report, Saracens beat Exeter Chiefs 40-38 in the semi-final at StoneX Stadium in a match with twelve tries in total. Jess Breach scored the decisive try five minutes before the end, after a solo move that started from her own half, while Exeter repeatedly put scoreboard pressure back on the hosts during the match. The Guardian stated in its semi-final report that Exeter led until the 75th minute, which further underlines how hard Saracens had to work to avoid a surprise. Such a match can serve as a warning to Trailfinders that Saracens are not infallible, but also as a reminder that a club with that level of experience often finds a solution even when the match becomes complicated.
Saracens seek confirmation of status, Trailfinders proof of a new order
For Saracens, the final is an opportunity to return to the top of the league competition after losing the 2025 finale to Gloucester-Hartpury 34-19. According to PWR’s history of the competition, Saracens won titles in the Premier 15s/Premiership Women’s Rugby era in 2017/18, 2018/19 and 2021/22, so victory at Twickenham Stoop would mean a fourth title in that period. PWR stated in a text about Marlie Packer that Saracens this season do not want to again finish as finalists without a trophy, and Packer herself said the emphasis had been placed not only on reaching the final but also on winning the title. Her personal context strengthens the emotional dimension of the match: according to PWR, after nine years at Saracens, Packer is leaving for Harlequins, the club whose stadium is hosting this final. Sophie de Goede, one of Saracens’ important players, said in a PWR interview that it would be right for the team to bring the trophy home in Packer’s final match in the club’s colours. Saracens are not arriving only with the emotion of farewell, but also with real arguments of dominance: according to TNT Sports, in the league part they scored 741 points and had the best points difference in the championship, plus 497.
Trailfinders enter the same event with a completely different symbolic burden. The club is young enough in the PWR context that reaching the final alone would be a major result, but the victories over Gloucester-Hartpury have changed expectations. Zackary, according to PWR, said the club’s growth was “incredible” and that reaching the final in such a short period was especially significant in London, where there are clubs with stronger traditions, such as Saracens and Harlequins. Such a statement is not only a compliment to her own dressing room, but also a description of the wider market of women’s club rugby in the capital of the United Kingdom. Trailfinders are trying to confirm that investment, the international quality of the squad and a clear coaching structure can quickly produce a title contender, even in a competition in which the reputation of big clubs still carries real weight.
The key could lie in controlling the tempo and the first reaction to pressure
From a sporting perspective, the final can be reduced to the question of whether Trailfinders can stop the periods in which Saracens speed up the game and punish every technical mistake. This year’s two head-to-head results suggest that Saracens have so far managed to quickly turn an advantage into complete control of the match. Still, Trailfinders do not enter the final as the same team that lost 80-14 at the start of June. According to PWR, that defeat came with a rotated line-up because the team was already looking toward the semi-final against Gloucester-Hartpury, and victory in that semi-final confirmed that Trailfinders have a higher competitive level than they showed at StoneX Stadium. In the final, therefore, the first quarter of the match will be particularly important: Trailfinders must avoid an early collapse of structure, while Saracens can try immediately to reopen the opponent’s old doubts.
At the same time, Saracens cannot count on history to do the job by itself. The semi-final against Exeter showed that even the favourite can be forced to save a match in the closing stages, and Trailfinders, with two wins over Gloucester-Hartpury, proved that they have the discipline to play under pressure. If Meg Jones and Trailfinders’ creative players find space from transition, and the defence manages to slow Saracens’ distribution toward the outside channels, the final can take on a different tone from the league meetings. If Saracens impose continuity of possession, speed after won balls and pressure at set pieces, then Trailfinders will again have to seek an answer to the problem that has followed them since entering the league. That is precisely why Zackary’s image of “kryptonite” is not merely an effective line for a match preview, but a precise description of the sporting task facing her team.
The 2026 PWR final therefore arrives as a meeting of two convincing but opposing stories. Saracens seek a title that would confirm they remain the benchmark for the biggest matches, after a season in which they were second in the regular part, finalists and the team with the most destructive points difference. Trailfinders seek a victory that would turn an accelerated project into trophy-winning proof and end a run of six defeats against the same opponent. PWR has billed the finale as the “Battle of the Best”, and in this case that phrase has additional meaning: the best team on final day will not necessarily be the one with the longest tradition or the best head-to-head record, but the one that manages in 80 minutes to turn its arguments so far into the final result.
Sources:
- Premiership Women’s Rugby – Kate Zackary’s statement and preview of the Trailfinders Women final against Saracens (link)
- Premiership Women’s Rugby – official information on the 2026 PWR final, the time and Twickenham Stoop stadium (link)
- Premiership Women’s Rugby – report on Trailfinders Women’s semi-final victory over Gloucester-Hartpury (link)
- Premiership Women’s Rugby – report on Saracens’ semi-final victory over Exeter Chiefs (link)
- Premiership Women’s Rugby – round 17 review and Trailfinders’ 41-39 victory over Gloucester-Hartpury (link)
- Premiership Women’s Rugby – text on Barney Maddison and the building of the Trailfinders Women team (link)
- Premiership Women’s Rugby – interview with Marlie Packer about Saracens ahead of the final (link)
- Premiership Women’s Rugby – interview with Sophie de Goede and the context of the Saracens dressing room (link)
- Premiership Women’s Rugby – Trailfinders Women club profile and data on entry into the league in 2023 (link)
- Premiership Women’s Rugby – history of the competition and Saracens’ previous titles (link)
- TNT Sports – table and statistics from the regular part of the 2025/26 Premiership Women’s Rugby season (link)
- The Guardian – report and context of the 2026 PWR semi-final day (link)