Sydney makes it five!

From our South African correspondant

Sunday's planned U15s Thames Valley league match against Bucks Jesters could not be played as the visitors had only six players. However, as Letchworth Saracens were blessed with 10, an 8 a side friendly match was arranged so that all the players got a full game ... with the magnificent weather, it certainly was not a day to have players shivering on the sidelines!

Actually, the first half started with reasonably good weather and great rugby conditions. Letchworth Saracens had a rather bumpy start and fell behind as the Jesters no. 10 scored consecutive tries and our very own Sydney, who had sportingly volunteered to play for Jesters, added a further three unanswered tries. Then a bout of more typical British weather sent torrential rain to try to further dampen the spirits of the girls ... but neither side let that interfere with the match! Furthermore, the home side would not give up and with Ellah's positive captaincy pulling her team together they fought back. After two attempts and multiple phases, Letchworth Saracens were rewarded when their hooker crossed the line to open their account. With their spirits high, the home side took the game to the visitors.

The second half was played under somewhat drier skies and two different girls played for the Jesters. Letchworth Saracens kept fighting to close the gap in the scoreline with Sydney scoring two tries and new recruit Florence running in the first try of her career with a brilliant line to receive a well waited pass from the centre. However, Jesters then responded with two more tries to make the game safe. All in all a very enjoyable game for all.


Result

Letchworth Saracens 30 v. 58 Bucks Jesters

No Laughing Matter ....

It was 11.30 pm on Saturday night that I drove out to collect Nikki from a party and found that there had been rather a lot of rain - in places the A505 was underwater. Quite a lot of water, actually - above the Mondeo's headlights in a few places. Nevertheless, when Simon rang on Sunday morning to query the state of our pitches, I confidentally told him that they would be alright ... though I did drive to the club to make sure. Indeed, at 10am, the pitches were in a good condition with no standing water on them and the surface was (relatively) firm. Certainly a lot better than the car park which was, as usual, sporting several wide and rather deep puddles!

The rest of the morning was dry with a moderate wind so all looked to be set fair for the first Thames Valley league games to be played at Letchworth. Our visitors on Sunday were Bucks Jesters who we had played - and lost to - at Chesham a few weeks ago in truly awful wind and rain (see "Soaking Sunday"). It will be no surprise to anyone (certainly not to anyone who was there or has looked at the pictures below) that the wind and rain returned just in time for the matches to start ...... so again the games were played in conditions more appropriate for water polo than rugby.

A shortage of Bucks Jesters props meant that the U18s game had to be played with uncontested scrums throughout. The first half of the match was a keenly contested, evenly balanced affair with Jesters taking an early lead through an unconverted try and Letchworth Saracens responding with a neat backs move that put Chloe over near the posts and an 80 metre breakaway try down the left wing by Claire who also converted both of them. With the score at 14-5 in the home teams favour, and the conditions worsening by the minute, the visitors responded magnificently to keep the home defence under pressure and force errors in the slippery conditions. The pressure told and Jesters hacked the ball through to score two more tries before half time and turn round leading by 14-19.

The second half saw Letchworth Saracens raise their game but, in trying to exert pressure on the Jesters defence, a few errors occured which cost them dear when Jesters broke away to score 3 more tries before the final whistle.

Jesters were rightly proud of their 14-40 victory but for the home side it was No Laughing Matter ...!

Result

Letchworth Saracens U18s 14 v. 40 Bucks Jesters U18s

Scorers

Tries : Chloe, Claire

Conversions : Claire (2)

Girls' rugby... on the Pakistan border

We hear nothing but bad news from some parts of the world, and at the moment no more so than in lands surrounding Pakistan. They sound like a continual war zone, with life especially hard for teenage girls and young women who - from what we hear - do not have the freedoms we take for granted.

This is therefore a remarkable story - the story of Saliah, a Muslim schoolgirl from Kashmir, who is captain of the Indian national team. She and Saba - a year junior to her - have been chosen to attend a major IRB development course in India, with Saliah aiming for a career in the game.

Well worth a look at, the article gives a positive look at life from a place that we hear few positive stories.

IRB launch World Cup 2010

The IRB today "launched" the 2010 World Cup, including a dedicated website (http://www.rwcwomens.com/).

All games up to the semi-finals will take place at the University of Surrey's new (indeed so new its still being built) Surrey Sports Park in Guildford. The semi-finals, third place game, and final will be at The Stoop.

Unexpectedly the IRB have decided on a far simpler and easier to follow format than any of their previous tournaments - for the first time all teams in each pool will play each other! Unfortunately this clarity only goes so far because, by insisting on a 12 team tournament, the IRB have painted themselves into a potentially complex corner when it comes to deciding who will qualify for the semi-finals.

The three pool winners and "best runner-up" will meet in the semi-finals on 1st September. It is not exactly clear how the "best runner-up" will be decided if (as is entirely possible) more than one team finishes on the same number of points - but the final round of pool games promise to be incredibly exciting, not to say wildly confusing!

In the semi-finals the best runner-up will then meet the pool winner with the best record. As a result it is quite possible that a semi-final may be a repeat of an earlier pool game. It is even possible that England and New Zealand could meet in a semi-final (though that is something that the organisers will be desperate to avoid!).

England open their campaign on 20th August against Ireland. They then play Kazakhstan on 24th, and finish against the USA on the 28th. New Zealand will play South Africa, Australia and Wales on the same dates. Full fixture information can be found here.

Sky journalist says "women's rugby offers men's game lessons"

An excellent article from a Sky sports journalist about Saturday's international has appeared on Scrum Queens.

Well worth a read!

England: Number 1 in the world?

Men's rugby has had official international rankings now for years. A fiendishly complex statistical calculation is used, but the result is something that supposedly removes all argument about who is better than who. It also arguably adds an extra spice to games, an extra encouragement to play internationals in order to move up the table. It cannot do any harm to a sport if you can show that your national team is in the top 10 or 20 in the world.

Women's rugby has no such ranking. There are all kinds of arguments why this would be, like there being fewer games, but many of the teams in the men's ranking hardly have a full fixture programme so the real reason is probably more a lack of interest or effort on the part of the IRB.

So it is interesting to see that a rugby enthusiast/statistician in France has now stepped in to the breach and produced a detailed ranking for all women's international teams - the first ever produced by anyone. The methodology is complex, and may be debatable at the margins, but the result is interesting and - considering we have a Frenchman giving an English team top billing! - unbiased. After yesterday's games the top ten are...

• 1 England 3963 points
• 2 New Zealand 3928
• 3 France 3625
• 4 Canada 3612
• 5 Wales 3449
• 6 United States 3387
• 7 Ireland 3340
• 8 Scotland 3231
• 9 Australia 3028
• 10 Spain 2840

It is also interestingly the rankings are close (but not quite identical) to the IRB's seeding for the World Cup.

While on the subject of the World Cup, were you planning to got to the final in September? If so it may be an idea to ensure you get tickets early. The RFU have now confirmed that the crowd was over 12,500 for a friendly fixture on a cold, wet winter's evening yesterday at Twickenham. Quite how many there will be for the World Cup Final on a warm summer's afternoon next September can only be guessed, but its worth bearing in mind that the absolute capacity of The Stoop is barely a thousand or so more than yesterday's crowd. You have been warned!

A perfect taster for the World Cup

As many of you will have seen, England gained revenge for their defeat in the first test last weekend by beating New Zealand 10-3 this afternoon in front of 12,000 spectators - possibly the largest crowd to ever watch an international in England. Meanwhile on the other side of the Channel the third and fourth ranked teams in 2006 - France and Canada - completed their series, with the home nation also coming back from a first test defeat to beat Canada 22-0.

These results seem to have set things up perfectly for next year's tournament, showing that no-one is invincible. Details about venues and formats are due to be released next week, but I am sure I heard one of the commentators let slip that the pool and ranking games will be at the University of Surrey in Guildford, with the final at The Stoop. We already know that there will be games on August 20th, 24th, 28th, and September 1st, with the final on September 5th.

Between now and then all nations are due to play in a range of tournaments and warm-up games - including the Six Nations which is due to start on the weekend of the 6th February. England are likely to be playing their home games at Esher.

World Cup draw announced

The draw for next year's World Cup has been released by the IRB:

Pool A: New Zealand, Wales, Australia, South Africa
Pool B: England, USA, Ireland, Kazakhstan
Pool C: France, Canada, Scotland, Sweden

So - England will take on the USA, Ireland and Kazakhstan for a place in the final stages?

Well, no. Possibly not. Crucially the actual format for the tournament has not yet been published, but whatever the IRB come up with it can safely be assumed that it will be nothing like as simple as that. Despite one or two media organisations leaping to this conclusion (such as the BBC - though it is nice to see them acknowledge that the game exists after all!), no IRB-organised world cup has ever been that simple. In fact, if the same format as 2006 world cup is used then it would mean that the teams that England will definately not play would be USA, Ireland and Kazakhstan!

So at this stage information about which pool any team has been drawn is actually pretty meaningless - what is rather more important is what this tells us about seedings, which appear to be:

1. New Zealand; 2. England; 3. France; 4. Canada; 5. USA; 6. Wales

7. Australia; 8. Ireland; 9. Scotland; 10. Sweden; 11. Kazakhstan; 12. South Africa

No team from the bottom half of the seeds has ever beaten a team in the top half - so it looks a tough draw for Australia and Ireland.

England international records tumble at Esher

• Worst defeat suffered by any England Women's XV at home - ever
• Worst defeat by any England Women's XV this century
• Second worst defeat suffered by any England Women's XV ever

New Zealand did not beat England A last night - they destroyed them. England A 3, New Zealand 48... if you can bear to watch you'll find an X-rated three minutes or so here.

Okay, not England's 1st XV, nor really New Zealand's second team (the touring party is only 26 or so strong, so a fair few players from Saturday played again) - but an indication of the scary depth of talent that the Black Ferns have. After all, the England team were hardly novices - there were a fair few players out there with 1st XV experience, and as a team England A would be a match for most 1st XVs from the rest of the world (probably only behind the likes of Wales, Canada, France and maybe Ireland and the USA).

The second test between the Black Ferns and England is on Saturday - live on Sky. If the visitors play like this again you may need to watch from behind the sofa!

More photos from Sunday's U15 game

Over 50 more pictures from Sunday's U15 game against Ampthill/Bedford have been loaded onto the "Letchworth Rugby Club 1st Team phptos's" (sic) Facebook page.

To take a look (and to tag yourself and your friends!) go here.

Letchworth Saracens v. Ampthill/Bedford

Given the diabolical weather which covered most of Britain on Saturday - and the heavy rain that arrived on Monday - we can consider ourselves very fortunate to have had blue skies and only a moderate breeze for Letchworth Saracens first home games of the season.

Being a two club cluster team, Letchworth Saracens have two home grounds but with the opposition coming from north of the two clubs (Ampthill and Bedford Blues), the honour of hosting this game fell to Letchworth. Doubtless this was also appreciated by the Norfolk Nomads girls who had quite a long enough journey as it was.

With 5 clubs represented, we were able to hold games at close to full strength - 13 a side for the U15s and 15 a side for the U18s - which is quite a rarity these days and was very much appreciated. The U15s game was keenly contested throughout but Letchworth Saracens took an early lead and put on a good team performance to maintain the advantage throughout to end up winners by 42-10.

The situation with the U18s match was very similar - a strongly contested game in which Letchworth Saracens took an early lead and continued to add to it throughout. However, this was no 'pushover' - the relatively young and inexperienced Bedford Blues/Ampthill team put up a strong defence and were still striving to stop the Letchworth Saracens attacks, and get themselves on the scoreboard, right to the final whistle. It was their misfortune that on Sunday, Letchworth Saracens managed to put on the kind of all round team performance that had eluded them earlier in the season and consequently ran in 9 tries to make the final score 55-0 to the home side.

Scores & Scorers

U15s : Letchworth Saracens 42 - 10 Ampthill/Bedford Blues

Tries : CJ (4), Sydney (2), Mel, Ellah

Conversions : Sydney

U18s : Letchworth Saracens 55 - 0 Ampthill/Bedford Blues

Tries : Jess (4), Chloe (2), Claire (2), Jade

Conversions : Claire (5)

Open letter to the BBC...

To: the ignorant, misogynstic dinosaurs responsible for the BBC Sports' rugby "coverage"

Dear Sir

(I think it is a safe bet that you are a "sir")

Which was the more important of two rugby games played over the weekend...

a) England Women (no. 2 in the world) vs New Zealand (world champions), or
b) Llangennech vs Whitland in Welsh National League Div 1(West)?

Well clearly the latter as BBC Sports' rugby news pages on the internet managed to ignore the former COMPLETELY. No preview, no report, no pictures - not even the match score on the results page. On the other hand Llangennech did rather better than that, with its fixture listed before the game and score appearing on the results page afterwards.

I am sure that they are a popular local club but in what possible way were events at Llangennech RFC more newsworthy than a match involving the an international team that had won 23 consecutive internationals prior to the match (now 24) - comfortably a world record - playing against an England team unbeaten at home for 19 internationals?

What on earth does women's rugby have to do before the blinkered dinosaurs responsible for the BBC's rugby coverage acknowledge that women play the game? That one player in 12 is now female? That the only England team capable of winning anything of any significance in the next x years is the women's team? And that the most exciting young player in the game is called Emily?

You cover women's cricket, and women's football, and women's golf, and women's tennis but you IGNORE women's rugby (apart from the odd random six nations article). Why? Really, why?

Yours sincerely

John Birch.

If you feel in a similar way about the BBC's failure to even mention that the Black Ferns are here, why not drop them a line too via the BBC Complaints Page. Remember to say "yes" to the question "do you want a reply".

RFUW make clear what their priorities are

It seems a while since I have had a go at the RFUW in Twickenham, but a little information that reached me over the weekend needs passing on, I think.

RFU figures indicate that there are at least 4,000 girls aged 13-18 playing rugby in England. I say "at least" because in fact this is almost certainly a wild underestimate - Sport England surveys would suggest that, as result of under-registration of girls and women (or the registration of girls as "boys" due to some of the features registration system) the figure could be easily doubled. Anyway - that's quite a few players for a minority sport. Significantly more than, for example, 60.

Why 60?

Well I hear from a normally reliable source that RFUW are not willing to give their support to a proposed multi-club girls tournament (I will avoid saying which tournament to avoid any nonsense) because the date clashes with an elite girls' event. Or to put it another way the RFUW believe that a development day for a mere 60 or so elite girls - who are obviously starved for development opportunities, what with there being "only" 13 weeks of county and regional rugby, plus TDGs, Schools of Rugby, etc. etc. etc! - is more important than a competitive day's rugby for knocking on for ten times that many. It all confirms (yet again) that despite Twickenham's words about wanting to expand the game, their actions show that basically if you are not a potential England player they are not interested.

On the positive front apparently the RFU have endorsed the tournament - so maybe things may change soon once the merger takes place.

England v New Zealand: First test highlights

Thanks to Scrum Queens, highlights of the key moments from yesterday's first test are now available.

Oddly the highlight package was produced by the RFU, but there is no sign of it yet on the RFU's website (well, not that anyone can find!). They have finally put up a match report, however.

Meanwhile, in a land far, far away...

Our former coach, Simon, and his assistant, Kirsten, have just got married (today by the look of it) - more pictures of the day here.

For those new to the club, Simon played prop for Letchworth 1st XV and became girls' team coach in September 2007 when Joe Randall (who now coaches Gloucestershire Girls') went off to university. He was responsible for introducing a whole vocabulary of new and colourful words and phrases and cajoled, drove, and encouraged the girls to what became (after a shaky start!) the U18s most successful season ever, with a top eight finish in the National 7s and a top five place at the National 10s.

Unfortunately Simon and Kirsten had to return to their native New Zealand at the end of the season - but those who played under them or worked with them remember their contribution to the Legends with great affection. Good luck to both of them!

England defeated in first test

England have been beaten by New Zealand in the First Test at Esher RFC today. The final score of 16-3 was significantly larger than most experts had predicted - especially given the conditions which might have been expected to favour England.

Few details were available until nearly four hours after the game - indeed it is remarkable that information from home internationals still remains so hard to trace. We managed to publish live scores and even short reports from the touchline during Letchworth tour and tournament games as long as three years ago, and what with Twitter and Facebook anyone with a mobile phone can now do the same thing incredibly easily. Other unions have even experimented with live video feeds, but the RFU and RFUW remain... rather behind the times.

However Scrum Queens had a correspondent at the game (otherwise it would all have still been a secret even now!) and have published a detailed match report. Surprises seem to be the dropping of Emily Scarratt to the bench (allegedly to "keep her fresh" - though as she is only 19 you'd think that a shade unnecessary!) and a truly awful kicking display - only one try in the game, it seems, but the Black Ferns slotted three penalties to England's one.

Actually reading between the lines you strongly suspect nerves. Did the build-up get to England more than New Zealand? If so, how will they cope with live TV at Twickenham? Gary Street has a huge task ahead of him in the next few days. Afterwards he said:

"This game was a real fact finder for us ahead of the World Cup in 2010, and more immediately next Saturday. We are not a side that lose often, and despite that I am upbeat. We have found out today that they are not super human and we are certainly ready to fight again next Saturday.

"I would have liked better playing conditions today. For 30 minutes of the game we were only 3-0 down, and if we had matched that I think it would have been a different story. Instead we made errors and they added a second penalty and a try just before half time. Then we were left chasing our tails."

Sunday, 15th November

This Sundays friendly games against Ampthill/Bedford Blues have been moved to the Letchworth club which gives us our first home fixtures of the season and saves us all a bit of travelling!

Will all players in both U15 and U18 squads please meet at the Letchworth club at noon on Sunday. There will be a warm-up/short training session leading to the matches kicking off at about 1pm.

Why club rugby is so important.

Teenage rugby sensation Emily Scarratt talks to Scrum Queens today in an interview that is part of the build up for the big game on Saturday.

Emily - who appeared for Paviors against Letchworth on several occasions during her junior years - is still only 19. Since her full England debut earlier this year she has scored a remarkable 12 tries in 12 games.

Emily is a great example of why club rugby is so important. If there had not been a small, local club to give her the chance to try the game she would never have taken it up. It does not matter how much money is poured into county teams or regional rugby, or how much effort is put into fiendishly clever and bewilderingly complex "player pathways", if it had not been for a few volunteers at Leicester Forest East RFC five years ago, one of the most exciting prospects in English rugby (male or female!) might never have picked up a ball!

So its rather a pity to have to add that there isn't a Leicester Forest East team any more. I wonder how many Emilys the game has missed because their local club has folded?

Starting gun fired for 2014 World Cup

Four countries have bid to host the 2014 World Cup, the IRB have announced - the largest number ever, though as this is the first time the IRB have run a public competition to find a host for a Women's Rugby World Cup its is rather difficult to compare it with previous tournaments. In the past the IRB has tended to not even confirm that there would be a World Cup until the host was announced, normally only a year or so before the event. If bids were invited, the process was never a public one.

But all that has changed, and four unions have stepped forward. As anticipated, no European nations are in the running - instead bids have been made from Asia (Kazakhstan), North America (USA), and Oceania (New Zealand and Samoa). However, in practice there would seem to be only one likely winner.

While the sight of the New Zealand RFU taking the women's game seriously enough to host the World Cup is a good sign (and long overdue), the timing is rotten. They already have the men's World Cup in 2011 (a controversial decision), which is likely to count against them. It would also be the second successive women's tournament in a "major" rugby nation, and the IRB do like to use the women's and junior world cups as a means of spreading the game. Politically, the other three nations are likely to be more appealing to the IRB.

Of these, Samoa face potential problems not only because of the size and geographic remoteness of the country, but also because as host they would have to take the place of a stronger nation (probably a European one) - which could cost them votes. Kazakhstan have a stronger case, but would have to make major improvements on their performance hosting the Asian championships last year (which sounds like it was something of an ordeal).

All of which makes the USA overwhelming favourites. The only factor against them is that North America (in the shape of Canada) had the tournament in 2006 - but a minor barrier compared to those faced by their three opponents. The US have the facilities, the followers of the game needed to fill stadia, would qualify anyway (so would "deserve" their place in the tournament), and are not one of the eight "major" rugby nations. Tick, tick, tick, tick.

The IRB will announce the winner in May.

• Since the announcement, the NZRFU seem to have recognised the potential problem their bid has and Radio New Zealand are suggesting that they might offer to share the event with Samoa. Unfortunately, for costs reasons, the IRB have always preferred to stage the tournament in a single city. Spreading it across half the Pacific is unlikely to be seen as workable (or affordable).

World Cup: The last qualifier

The tournament to decide final qualifier for the World Cup kicks off tomorrow (at around breakfast our time). The Asian qualification tournament will be a straight knockout, with the semi-finals on Wednesday and the final on Friday.

In practice the eventual winner is unlikely to be a serious contender next September, but it shoudl still be an interesting event. Hosts Singapore kick the tournament off against Japan at 8am our time (4pm local time) and deserve to do well, if only because of their astonishing enthusiasm and detailed preparations - none of the other sides have worked quite as hard as Singapore have, with three warm-up internationals in the past month. This is the first time they have entered the World Cup - Singapore did not even have a women's team in 2006.

Japan, on the other hand, have been playing since the early days of women's rugby - but their preparations have been significantly less impressive and, while they start as favourites, there is a real chance of an upset - especially if Singapore can get an early score.

The second semi final between Kazakhstan and Hong Kong kicks off at 10am. Kazakhstan are clear favourites for both this game, and the competition as a whole (they have never lost to another Asian team) - but they have played only four internationals since 2006 so who knows how prepared they will be?

Coping with rugby withdrawal symptoms

Weekend a long way off? Need a "fix" of rugby to see you through to the next training? Then why not try out these three new games - with the extra bonus of possibly winning tickets to England Men v Argentina on the 14th November.

The games are part of an Investec site launched for the Autumn Internationals. There is a game that involves catching a scrum-half pass (but missing the flying boots - some game designer has a Wii methinks), the usual type of kicking game, and the promise of a tackling game to come soon.

On the other hand the site has no mention of the women's internationals - even the Twickenham "double header". So once you've played the games, could I suggest that you go here and point out to them the error of their ways (I called them "misogynstic dinosaurs" - can you to do better?).

Soaking Sunday

That rare phenomenon in girls rugby- the morning kick off - happened on Sunday at Chesham where Bucks Jesters played Letchworth Saracens. Normally this would be much appreciated but, unfortunately, the weather forecast was quite accurate and we were treated to a warm-up and first half of the match in pouring rain which eased off in the second half. If only we had had the usual afternoon start, it would have been a very pleasant dry day!

U18s captain, Claire, was poorly and unable to play so Bubbles stepped in to the scrumhalf role and Nikki took over the kicking duties for this match. With the wet and windy conditions and the slippery ball, this was not a good day for flowing backs moves and the match was largely a tough forwards battle. In the first half, Jesters had the better of things particularly in the rucks and they were rewarded with two excellent break away tries to reach the interval leading 10-0.

With the wind and the slope in their favour in the second half, Letchworth Saracens raised their game and were in the ascendancy both in the forward battle and in territory throughout. However, they were unable to make that pressure count on the scoreboard. Scoring a third break away try midway through the half made the game safe for Jesters, but did nothing to dampen the attacking desire of Letchworth Saracens or the defensive determination of Bucks Jesters.

Despite the heavy rain, both sides played the game with great spirit with every ball fiercely contested and it was a much more even contest than the 17-0 scoreline suggests. In the end, the difference between the sides was that Bucks Jesters took their chances and Letchworth Saracens did not manage to take theirs but that wasn't for lack of trying! All the girls should be proud of the way they stuck to the task and kept pressing right to the final whistle.

The U15s league match could not be played as both teams were somewhat depleted this weekend. However, a 6 a side friendly game was played between the teams which everyone took to with great enthusiasm. With so much space around the field, this game was obviously one for the backs to enjoy (... and the forwards to endure!) and it did indeed turn out to be an end-to-end match. Despite a brace of tries from Sydney, and one each from Ellah and Vicky, the home side ran out comfortable winners by 42-20.

Result

Bucks Jesters U18s 17 v 0 Letchworth Saracens U18s

Bucks Jesters U15s 42 v 20 Letchworth Saracens U15s

Scorers

Tries : Sydney (2), Ellah, Vicky