IF YOU suggested to Katy Mclean and Tamara Taylor a few years ago that, as Darlington Mowden Park Sharks players, they would one day be playing their club rugby in a 25,000-capacity stadium that would be hosting international rugby, for a World Cup-winning side which they would have both captained by the time the game had came about, what would their reactions be?

“We’d have laughed at you,” was the blunt reply from South Shields-born Mclean, who captained England to World Cup glory last August in France.

But that is precisely the situation for the Mowden pair, who will be involved in some capacity for England Women when they take on Scotland at the Northern Echo Arena on March 13, as part of a double header with the England U20 side.

When you frame it in the perspective of Mowden playing their rugby at Yiewsley Drive in 2012, with the prospect of a new ground at West Park doomed to failure, their move to their new, palatial surroundings was deemed audacious, but now a reality. The club hosting international rugby is the stuff of dreams, but it’s something that both players will be looking forward to.

“It’s a testament to how far the club’s going,” explained Mclean, who handed the captaincy reins to Taylor for the Six Nations, of which the Scotland game forms a part. “The fact the RFU have brought two big games to Darlington – these are two world champions – there’s a decent standard.

“The RFU can see that our game and the under-20s is almost a commodity that they can sell. You talk about great games, and you dream about playing at Twickenham, but we play our club rugby here, then we can represent our country here, it’s up there when you think of top games.

“It’s massive for us. I’m from South Shields. I never thought that international women’s rugby would get to the north. We do have a culture of being around the south – we got to Worcester at one point – so it’s great that we have a game in Darlington. It’s a massive honour, and it’s massive for the region.”

For Taylor, whose captaincy of England saw an opening defeat to Wales followed by a 39-7 victory against Italy at Twickenham Stoop a week ago, her new role has come at a time of great change for the world champions.

“Obviously it will be amazing just to even play here as an international,” said Taylor, who took over from Mclean for the Six Nations after her Mowden teammate turned full-time and represented the England Sevens in an IRB event in Brazil. “It’s something that all the girls in the North-East will be vying for the chance to play here. If they’re not selected they’d be sat in the stands cheering the girls on. It’s a really exciting prospect.

“We’ve had every single challenge we could imagine at the moment. With the sevens girls going professional, six girls retiring after the World Cup, new coaching staff, the manager leaving, we’ve had a myriad of changes.

“But it’s a new start, it’s a new season, a new squad. Those challenges have been exciting, different, the future’s going to be really good – it’s going to take a little bit of breaking in but it’s bright.”

While the future for England Women is bright, the Northern Echo Arena has a similarly rosy path ahead, and Taylor is relieved that a structure that so easily could have been a white elephant is being put to good use.

“The fact that Mowden have taken over a stadium that hadn’t been used for a good ten months, when the football club left, it’s great they have taken over to breathe new life into it,” said the 33-year-old. “It is fit for an international team and it’s great it is being used for that purpose.”

Mclean added: "You talk about international sporting events and you have two big games here. The fact Mowden went out and bid for the game is a testament to the club, the values of this club – it’s not just about elite men’s rugby, it’s about the whole club. I really hope we can get a big crowd in and show the southerners how it is done.”

It’s a stadium that still reeks of excess, brought about from an indulgence of a football chairman who thought it appropriate to erect a 25,000 capacity ground for a football club who would struggle to fill half that, even if they were ever to achieve his fanciful claims that they could one day play in the Premier League.

But, far from being George Reynolds’ folly, the Northern Echo Arena has a plan, and a sense of purpose. It’s a stadium easily capable of hosting Premiership rugby union, and when you see the men’s team making gradual gains on the pitch, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that Mowden could be in the top-flight some day.

Although some evidence of Darlington FC’s tenancy still exists – the club crest in the lift that takes you to the very Reynoldsesque “Penthouse Suite” where the press conference for the England event being one – this is very much Mowden’s home now.

The seats have been reconfigured to spell DMP instead of DFC, Mowden instead of Quakers, the club do a roaring trade in hospitality – VIP seats for the international games are sold out – and the club securing the land around the stadium means that the 21 teams that fall under the Mowden umbrella will have a home.

As successful as hosting the Premiership Sevens games at the start of the season, and the England Counties match before then, have been, March’s staging of a double-header international fixture is one that will cement Mowden’s place in the national rugby consciousness.

And when the All Blacks come to England for the World Cup, using the Arena and Rockliffe Park as their base, Darlington will have a world reputation for hosting the sport.

It’s all part of the club’s vision, one that first team coach and stadium manager Danny Brown is excited about.

“It’s big for the club but also big for the region,” said Brown. “To get the RFU to recognise that rugby is quite big in the north as well is fantastic. So as much as it’s great for the club, it should be great for the region to get behind it as well.

“The ticket sales are going well and hopefully that will continue. We think we’ve priced it in the right area, so we can get as many in. It’s two games in one night, so hopefully people are going to back this and make it a good night.

“All the transport links are ideal for us. The initial take-up of tickets was from outside of the Darlington area. We’ve got groups from Pocklington, South Shields, all over.

“That’s what we want this place to be, an icon of regional sport for rugby.

“The England Counties game was a good start for us, we then took on the Premiership Sevens but this will be the biggest event so far – that’s going to be topped off by the All Blacks coming here at the end of the year.”

It’s a far cry from Yiewsley Drive.

Tickets for the double header at The Northern Echo Arena, which starts at 5.30pm, are £10 for adults, £5 for under-16s. Family tickets - two adults, three children - are £25 and armed forces and emergency services pay £7.