Rugbygirl - New Zealand's latest website

Rugbygirl is a new website set up to "grow and develop women's rugby in New Zeakand". Aiming to "bring you the latest womens rugby news from around the world so you can keep up to the minute with what's going on" it obviously has a significant New Zealand bias at present and is the second Kiwi site to launch since the World Cup (the other being Women's Rugby NZ).

Both help to fill the southern hemisphere news gap. There are still a few obvious gaps - most we still need dedicated sites from Australia and maybe South Africa - but we are getting there. The other major independent news sites are:

• YSC Rugby covers USA and, to an extent, Canada
• DFO and Promotion du rugby feminin cover France
• ScrumQueens covers UK and Ireland in detail, plus much of the rest of the world 

Independence is important as sites run by Unions will obviously never criticise the Union itself, or the IRB, or any official body - so at best you get a very upbeat impression of everything. Reading nothing but official press releases is like living on a diet of marshmallows - okay for a short while. but it gets a bit difficult to digest and you desperately hanker for something savoury and meaty.

Interestingly Rugbygirl is being run by an "incorporated non-profit society" (a charity?) and aims to attract funding to be spent on the game. Good luck with that, guys - I am not aware that any women's rugby websites make any measurable amounts of money at the moment, and hopefully the aim to attract funding will not interfere with your editorial independence.