The Women’s Six Nations would benefit from more competitive matches, CEO Tom Harrison has said.

England have won the last five editions of the tournament. Only France have gone close to challenging the Red Rose during that period.

Harrison says he expects that gap to narrow after strong investment in the women’s game over the past year.

“I do think it would be great to have more competitive matches,” Harrison said. “I think that through the investments that have happened just in the last 12 months, we will start to see some of that.

“Of course, England and France have obviously also upped their game in terms of their performance, and we have had another year of understanding how to become even better.

“I think at the moment the game is in a real development phase so it’s about providing those investment opportunities for the game to come through and see those improvements.

“Partners are very interested in seeing those improvements and seeing how teams are becoming more competitive. And let’s be honest, this isn’t the domination that you might see in Scottish football for example or something like that.

“We’ve got a couple of years where the gap has widened, I expect that gap to narrow and I think we will see sponsors asking questions in the future about ‘well, it would be much more interesting if there was real jeopardy going into the final weekend’.”