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.