Girls' rugby still in decline?

Yesterday was a big day for women's sport - an important Parliamentary committee was looking into how to keep the legacy of female success at the Olympics going and there were tales of interest and numbers up, but also information about how few girls - especially teenage girls - play any form of sport at all.

Which raises the question about what is happening with girls rugby. Remember that only five or six years ago Hertfordshire could expect 100 girls to turn up to county trials, and draconian restrictions had to be introduced into regional rugby just to keep the numbers trying to get into the teams down. New competitions like the Herts Sevens were attracting more entries that it knew what to do with, and the game was booming from the north-east to south-west. It was, officially, the fastest growing girls' sport.

And now?

Northumberland - a hotbed of girls rugby in the early 2000s, with much-feared clubs like Darlington and Tynedale - had barely enough players turn up for county trials to form a U18 team, and not enough at all at U15s (10 in fact).

In Hertfordshire numbers trialling were 36 for U18s - way less than five years ago - but actually up on last year thanks to a big cohort of players graduating from U15. More worryingly, however, fewer players seem to be coming in at the bottom - only around 20 turned up for U15s, perhaps half the number from last year.

Overall the country numbers playing at club level now seem to be lower than they have been for 10 years or more - though we cannot be certain of this as the official stats are wildly inflated by the numbers now playing in schools.

And schoolgirl rugby is indeed on a high - more schools entering tournaments than ever - but, as the county trials show, practically none of them are moving to clubs. And this is the third year of the U13 scheme should have seen - all those players introduced to the game by the U13 rules should now be moving into U15s... but  there is no sign of that happening.

One hint why from Northumberland - of their 25 U18 players, six play other sports, and all sports that got TV coverage in the summer. The rise of women's sport means that there is competition for sporting girls, and rugby (still largely invisible in the media) is losing out badly. Maybe things will improve after 2016 when sevens joins the Olympics, but that is four long years away.

Solution? My suggestion would be to look back to 2003 and recreate the world that made girls rugby thrive. No leagues, a game that moved seamlessly from mini rugby to the girls game, a game not overburdened with regulation, a game where a broader range of ages could play together (albeit unofficially!), and a game that worked through the clubs. And a game where England men were the new World Champions, of course. That helped too...