LONDON (AP) — England won a seventh successive Women's Six Nations title after surviving a sensational France fightback by 43-42 at Twickenham on Saturday.
Both unbeaten teams were playing for a Grand Slam. England trailed only once, very early, and only for two minutes.
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Kelly Arby of France, centre, breaks away from a challenged by England's Emma Sing, to score a try during the Women's Six Nations rugby union match at Twickenham stadium in London, Saturday, April 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
Joanna Grisez of France, right, dives over the line to score a try during the Women's Six Nations rugby union match at Twickenham stadium in London, Saturday, April 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
England's Maud Muir, center, is challenged by Yllana Brosseau of France during the Women's Six Nations rugby union match at Twickenham stadium in London, Saturday, April 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
England's Amy Cokayne, left, celebrates following the Women's Six Nations rugby union match at Twickenham stadium in London, Saturday, April 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
England's captain Zoe Aldcroft, centre, lifts the trophy at the presentation ceremony following the Women's Six Nations rugby union match at Twickenham stadium in London, Saturday, April 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
But there was nothing inevitable about its fourth successive Grand Slam even though it led 31-7 after 24 minutes, 38-21 after halftime, and 43-28 near the hour mark after winger Abby Dow's second try and England's seventh.
France, the last team to beat England in the championship when it won the 2018 title, stormed back in the last 10 minutes with tries by Morgane Bourgeois and Joanna Grisez, both converted by Bourgeois.
Only seconds remained after France's sixth and last converted try in front of an entertained crowd of 37,573.
England has won 34 consecutive games in the championship, the longest streak by any side in the men's or women's tournaments. The English have also won 21 of the 30 women's titles since the first championship in 1996.
They host the Women's Rugby World Cup in August.
Ireland finished third even though it lost to Scotland 26-19 in Edinburgh. At 19-19 and the clock nearly in red, Scotland waived a penalty kick while goalkicker Helen Nelson was in the sin-bin, forced a corner lineout and worked winger Francesca McGhie over in the left corner. Nelson converted from wide out.
Whether Scotland finishes fourth for a third straight year depends on the Italy-Wales game in Parma on Sunday, which was postponed a day because of the Pope's funeral.
AP rugby: https://apnews.com/hub/rugby
Kelly Arby of France, centre, breaks away from a challenged by England's Emma Sing, to score a try during the Women's Six Nations rugby union match at Twickenham stadium in London, Saturday, April 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
Joanna Grisez of France, right, dives over the line to score a try during the Women's Six Nations rugby union match at Twickenham stadium in London, Saturday, April 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
England's Maud Muir, center, is challenged by Yllana Brosseau of France during the Women's Six Nations rugby union match at Twickenham stadium in London, Saturday, April 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
England's Amy Cokayne, left, celebrates following the Women's Six Nations rugby union match at Twickenham stadium in London, Saturday, April 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
England's captain Zoe Aldcroft, centre, lifts the trophy at the presentation ceremony following the Women's Six Nations rugby union match at Twickenham stadium in London, Saturday, April 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
SAN FRANCISCO & JACKSONVILLE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 12, 2026--
Abridge, the leading enterprise-grade AI for clinical conversations, is collaborating with Availity, the nation’s largest real-time health information network, to launch a first-of-its kind prior authorization experience. The engagement uses cutting-edge technology grounded in the clinician-patient conversation to facilitate a more efficient process between clinicians and health plans in medical necessity review.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260112960386/en/
Rather than creating parallel AI systems across healthcare stakeholders, Abridge and Availity are working together to ensure shared clinical context at the point of conversation powers administrative processes, such as prior authorization review and submission, improving outcomes for patients and the teams delivering care.
This collaboration unites two trusted and scaled organizations: combining Abridge’s enterprise-grade AI platform, serving over 200 health systems and projected to support over 80 million patient-clinician conversations in 2026, with Availity’s next-generation, FHIR-native Intelligent Utilization Management solution, which helps payers and providers digitize and operationalize coverage requirements within administrative workflows.
Availity’s FHIR-native APIs enable fast, scalable, and secure connectivity of payer information across the entire healthcare ecosystem. With Abridge’s Contextual Reasoning Engine technology, clinicians can gain visibility into relevant clinical information during the conversation to support documentation aligned with prior authorization requirements.
“At Availity, we’ve invested in building AI-powered, FHIR-native APIs designed to bring clinical policy logic directly into provider workflows,” said Russ Thomas, CEO of Availity. “By embedding our technology at the point of conversation, we’re enabling faster, more transparent utilization management decisions rooted in clinical context. We’re excited to collaborate with Abridge and to demonstrate what’s possible when payer intelligence meets real-time provider workflows.”
The development of real-time prior authorization is just a component of a broader revenue cycle collaboration that is focused on applying real-time conversational intelligence across the patient, provider, and payer experiences. The companies intend to support integration by collaborating on workflow alignment between their respective platforms in the following areas:
“Abridge and Availity are each bringing national scale, deep trust, and a track record of solving important challenges across the care and claims experience to this partnership,” said Dr. Shiv Rao, CEO and Co-Founder of Abridge. “We’re building real-time bridges between patients, providers, and payers, unlocking shared understanding, focused at the point of conversation.”
About Availity
Availity empowers payers and providers to deliver transformative patient experiences by enabling the seamless exchange of clinical, administrative, and financial information. As the nation's largest real-time health information network, Availity develops intelligent, automated, and interoperable solutions that foster collaboration and shared value across the healthcare ecosystem. With connections to over 95% of payers, more than 3 million providers, and over 2,000 trading partners, Availity provides mission-critical connectivity to drive the future of healthcare innovation. For more information, including an online demonstration, please visit www.availity.com or call 1.800.AVAILITY (282.4548). Follow us on LinkedIn.
About Abridge
Abridge was founded in 2018 to power deeper understanding in healthcare. Abridge is now trusted by more than 200 of the largest and most complex health systems in the U.S. The enterprise-grade AI platform transforms medical conversations into clinically useful and billable documentation at the point of care, reducing administrative burden and clinician burnout while improving patient experience. With deep EHR integration, support for 28+ languages, and 50+ specialties, Abridge is used across a wide range of care settings, including outpatient, emergency department, and inpatient.
Abridge’s enterprise-grade AI platform is purpose-built for healthcare. Supported by Linked Evidence, Abridge is the only solution that maps AI-generated summaries to source data, helping clinicians quickly trust and verify the output. As a pioneer in generative AI for healthcare, Abridge is setting the industry standard for the responsible deployment of AI across health systems.
Abridge was awarded Best in KLAS 2025 for Ambient AI in addition to other accolades, including Forbes 2025 AI 50 List, TIME Best Inventions of 2024, and Fortune’s 2024 AI 50 Innovators.
Abridge and Availity Collaborate to Redefine Payer-Provider Synergy at the Point of Conversation
Abridge and Availity Collaborate to Redefine Payer-Provider Synergy at the Point of Conversation
