New threat to National 10s?

Out of the blue a threat to the "Not the RFUW" National 10s has emerged.

As you will all know, the tournament was created in response to the RFUW's decision to cancel the 2008/9 National 10s due to a "lack of interest". Over the summer various emails were exchanged between several of last year's finalists unhappy at this decision, following which the Gloucester Girls Rugby Trust agreed to run a replacement event at Hartpury College - one of the leading rugby facilities in the country.

Interest from clubs across England and Wales has been very high, with both the U18 and U15 tournaments looking like being fully subscribed. 

Up until now the only response from RFUW concerned the use of the word "National" in the name of the competition which they felt would cause confusion, though as there is no other national 10s tournament being run this year it was difficult to see what the confusion might be. Even so the organisers have modified the tournament name in order to keep Twickenham happy.

So everything seemed fine - but now it would appear that because RFUW do not "support" Gloucester Girls they may not "support" the tournament. 

Quite why RFUW would not support what is clearly a very successful body bringing a lot of girls into the game is difficult to understand (though not hugely relevent), but its even more difficult to understand why they would not support the tournament (especially because so many of its member clubs clearly do - and its also not going to cost them a penny). I'm also not sure I even understand why RFUW's "support" is needed - we didn't need it to run the Herts 7s back in 2006, any more than the club needed RFU's go-ahead to run the North Herts mini tournament last weekend. So this is all a bit strange - but without RFUW's official "support", apparently RFU won't support it, which makes insurance a problem. 

No-one seems to be doubting the ability of Hartpury to stage the event (after all, RFUW use the college themselves so they must think the facilities are good), nor of GGRT to run the it (it'll be a big tournament but, in terms of number of teams, no more an administrative headache than - say - Herts 7s). It is not as if it will be any strain on anyone's budget - no grants were being requested from RFUW (even though they were offering funding for 10s tournaments) or anyone else. In fact from what one hears the problem seems to be nothing to do with the tournament as such, but relates to a longer standing dispute between GGRT and the RFUW - a dispute that is now threatening what should be the highlight of the year for close on 400 girls from across England and Wales.

Fortunately there are several months to go before the date of the tournament so there is plenty of time, we must all hope, for those involved to sort their problems out.