Looking back

As 2012 comes to an end a few thoughts come to mind.

On the "home front" I came across the team picture from Rochford and its a shock to realise that the triumph of the Letchworth Girls at Rochford Tens is a full six years ago now. All of the "girls" from that day have, needless to say, grown up - two have children of their own. Others are working or coming to the end of their higher education studies. Several still play - most notably Jess Robinson, who played in the Dubai Sevens again a few weeks ago. They were a great bunch and I miss those days, though maybe not when the weather is like this!

Beyond that it is often a shock to see the outcome of stuff that I have written, even (maybe especially) stuff that starts on here. It was, after all, on this blog that the world first heard of Emily Valentine - the first woman in the world to play rugby (that we know of). Her story has spread and spread - its been rewritten and published in Italy and Germany and Sri Lanka and Fiji... and now, in New Zealand, she is a brand! EmVale is a new women's health and sports range, whose name comes from Emily.

Its things like this that make a total amateur blogger and occasional "reporter" (well, that is what the press pass said) feel... well, slight scared to be honest! And rather pleased as well.

There were other personal highlights in 2012 - especially the London Sevens, and meeting and trying to talk to the great Kelly van Harskamp in front of 70,000 very noisy spectators at Twickenham counts as a lifetime moment. And to also get to meet other players as well was amazing. And its really hard to keep the "fan" at bay when you are pretending to be a journalist and ask journalist style questions! But the great news is that it looks like I will get another chance to meet them all, in Amsterdam in May! At last I might get the chance to see Spain play, live - that is worth looking forward to!

Its not all been sweetness and light, though. Returning to matters domestic it must be clear to anyone with eyes to see and half a brain that girls rugby in England is no-where near as strong as it was when Letchworth were playing only 4-5 years ago. The great gamble to putting all of the development eggs in the school sport basket just is not paying off - the statistics of players in schools and school teams entering competitions is up dramatically, but there is no sign at all that even a fraction of these "new" players are staying in the game beyond 13-15 (ie. when the school game stops). The club game in key areas - like the north - is in a pitiful state. Yorkshire cannot raise a county team in both age groups. Something has gone disastrously wrong - and its very upsetting to watch. Hertfordshire continue to do well, compared with the country as a whole, but even in the best organised county attendance at county trials is, from what I hear, down by 60-70%  from the heady days of 2005-06.

It will take about 10 years, probably, before this hits the national team. In the meanwhile (and to end on a positive note) England are truly the best in the world now, certainly at 15s and maybe next year at 7s too. That is really something.

Never complain about the state of the pitch again...

The picture below comes from a women's international between Burundi and Rwanda, played on 15th December, details of which have only just come to light. There is a positive story here about the spread of the game, etc. but I think the main thing to look at is the pitch.

This is, I remind you again, an international. Rwanda will have travelled for quite a long time to get here and presumably this is the best that would be available to the home team. Drowning does seem a real threat in some areas...

Q: In which country is the national women's rugby team fronting their sponsor's poster campaign?

And, moreover, without the prefix "women's"?

Could it be New Zealand, home of the World Champions? No. Australia, then, home of the Sevens World Champions? No. England? Currently home of the best women's rugby team ever? Daft question.

No. It is a country where rugby is not even a major sport. I give you...

Holland (the slogan means "Clean. Strong. Power" apparently).

All sorts of thoughts come to mind here, like...

• When did you last see (Olympics-related advertising excepted perhaps) any women's sports team promote any product in the UK?
• Why the heck not? This is, after all, a pretty powerful - and eye-catching - image.
• Yes, okay, phrases like "posing pout" have been used but even so its still probably one of the most positive images of women in advertising that I have seen for some time. Compare and contrast with how women are being portrayed by people like Asda at the moment...
• As well as advertising the product (nuclear power, apparently!) this is a brilliant way of advertising the sport as well.
• "Sponsor of the Netherlands Sevens team" you note - not the "Netherlands women's sevens team". No prefix. That is a level of subliminal recognition that is pretty remarkable.
• This is a minority sport in Holland. But note the lack of explanation as to who they are. It is roughly the equivalent of a campaign in the UK being fronted by the British women's handball team, so who says you need to be big media stars to be valuable for advertisers?
• Add in the knowledge that this sponsor only sponsors the women's team - and it was the players themselves who went out and won the deal. Any team that has a sponsor-less shirt should maybe see it as an opportunity.
• Who is the promotional genius at the heart of the women's rugby set-up in Holland?

The weekend's county festivals cancelled

Breaking news: RFU have cancelled ALL of this weekend's senior and junior festivals due to the weather, flood warnings, and saturated pitches. See here for official statement.

England poised to be the best in the world - ever

After last nights 16-13 win over New Zealand the England are on the verge of becoming the best in the women's rugby team in the world - ever.

This is really one for the statistical geeks out there, but since women's test rugby began 30 years ago the "league table" of the most successful teams (that have played 20 tests of more) looks something like this:

In fact the top six have been pretty much unchanged for the past 20 years or so, but if England were to win the current series 3-0 we would see the first significant change for two decades. For the first time ever England would go top. 

England's record would go up to 87.56%, while New Zealand's would fall to 86.72%.

Even if England were to win only 2-1 the gap would close to barely one percentage point, which is pretty remarkable as after the World Cup the gap was nearly 10 points. 

U11 girls rugby - in Holland!

Just had to put up this great picture of Dutch international Mara Moburg coaching some 9-11 year old girls in the Netherlands. Partly because its a great picture (they are all hanging on her every word), partly because U11s in Holland clearly play contact, and partly because it shows again  how international the game really is.

Celebrating 25 years of test rugby in North America

More or less exactly now, but 25 years ago, the first ever women's rugby international to be played outside Europe took place in Victoria, British Columbia, in Canada. USA won 22-3, which was really no surprise as they were way ahead of pretty much everyone and went on to win the first World Cup four years later.

No-one seems to be wanting to celebrate this much, though the US women are at this very moment getting together for their tour of France and Italy so may have other things on their minds.

Anyway, its a even worth marking by someone... so well done to the US and Canadian women!

NZRU - New Zealand women's rugby's worst enemy?

20 years after the NZRU took over the running of the women's game, a remarkable article has appeared highlighting how badly treated the women are ("NZRU must stop treating top Women rugby players as Second Rate"). When rugby tournament have to cut costs it the women's teams that suffer; the Black Ferns will be playing with shirt sponsors next week but thus far it seems none of this money is making its way into the women's game (the entire tour is being funded by the RFU); and it seems the NZRU's funding of women's sevens may even be illegal under the rules of Olympic sport so far is it behind their funding of the men's game.

Yet despite all this the Black Ferns will undoubtedly be the greatest challenge England will face all year. Four times world champions despite their governing body the information detailed in this article shows that they must be the greatest miracle workers in modern sport.

Calling all students and past players!

Not played rugby since the U18s? Or back from university, but without a club? Then there is special festival for you!

19th December is normally the date for the boys students festival, for players who've gone off to Uni and are back for Christmas. However for the first time a senior ladies match has been organised - if there are enough people interested in playing! 

If you are interested contact philipkearns@rfu.com - by 16th November. It takes some planning so please please let him know if you are interested.

Women's rugby: the early days

A chance find had revealed a collection of 45 fascinating photos of women's club and international rugby in England and Wales from the mid-1980s. That may be barely 30 years ago, but for women's rugby its almost prehistoric!

The photos - which can be found buried in the Daily Mail's Picture Archive - include...

Several pictures (right) from games involving the Wiverns - the first ever women's rugby team from the US to tour Europe.

A national side in all but name (the USA - and come to that England - had not started playing test rugby in 1985), the Wiverns went undefeated throughout a long tour of the UK and France.

Many of the players went on to be part of the USA team that would win the first World Cup six years later.

A picture (left) from the first ever women's test match to take place in the UK - Great Britain vs France, a year later.

The picture shows France's Maris Gracieux tackling Great Britain's Suzy Hill.

The match took place at Richmond in London on 19th April 1986, France winning 14-8.

If you look carefully you see that the GB team have tape around their arms. This is because apparently the GB shirts only arrived minutes before the kick-off - and were found to be several sizes too big. The players had to tape up the sleeves to stop them flapping around... but the shirts still seem a big baggy!

Various club and university matches from in and around London are also featured (some in some very dodgy kit), one including a very young Carol Isherwood, as well as two pictures of the New Zealand team from the first world cup in 1991 doing a haka - apparently in the middle of a huge open field.

It all makes for a fascinating bit of women's rugby history.

More tales from the real world

Apart from much of my writing appearing elsewhere, I felt reluctant to write on here what I have been hearing because its always so negative. But in the end there is a paucity of real good news about girls' club rugby, hence last week's review. Now some more information had found my way.

Remember Yorkshire? A few years ago girls' rugby in Yorkshire was so big they were not just a county, they were a region - on their own. Their clubs were feared across the country (for all sorts of reasons).

And now, after four years of centrally imposed leagues, in the third year of the glorious U13 programme, and with player statistics higher than ever before? Yorkshire cannot raise a U15 team.

You start with frustration, then anger, then despair, then... It is the worst sort of nonsense where those in charge of the sport seem interested in just the numbers, because numbers on paper mean grants that... well, I suppose they go somewhere.

But all the evidence - I mean ALL the evidence - is that player numbers - REAL player numbers - are falling through the floor. Yeah, girls are being introduced to the sport in record numbers in schools, and more schools are playing in more tournaments than ever before BUT practically none of these girls are making their way to clubs.

U15 rugby should be booming this year. Three years after the start of the U13 programme, its graduates should be flooding into clubs. But traditionally the single biggest girls rugby county cannot raise a team. All of Yorkshire cannot find thirteen U15s interested in playing rugby. WTF????

The wonderful nationally imposed leagues shrink year on year, and now I hear that (unofficially) rules that restrict guests players in league matches are being quietly shelved just to get matches going.

I hate to say that some of us told you so, because that hardly helps.

(If someone has some good new stories about expanding rugby at U15 and U18, please let me know. It would make a huge difference...).

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...

Best women's rugby video ever?

Sorry about the long period of silence, but most of my writings now are on Scrumqueens.

But this remarkable video - from Norway of all places - deserves wider notice. Its very artistic, and frankly brilliant. Entirely instrumental backing means that it has potential value for use in presentations and promotional events. Watch, enjoy.

Herts Senior Trials

Date: Sunday 30th September meet at 2pm, trials end 4pm
Venue: Tabard RFC Cobden Hill, Radlett WD7 7JN

Eligibility criteria:1. 18years or over, no upper age limit.
2.A trialist needs to either live in, or play rugby in, or have been born in, Herts.
3.A trialist must not have been awarded a full international cap for another country within the last 3 years.

We are hoping to arrange  a warm up match (venue TBC) on Friday October 19th under floodlights against Buckinghamshire Ladies county team.

The county fixtures are:1. 4th November away to Essex
2.18th November at home against Kent. venue will be OA's and the U15's and U18's will be playing the same day, so a wonderful day of female rugby!
3.a Festival on either 1st or 2nd December- details TBC.

Training will take place the Friday evening before each match.( excluding the warm up match.)

Your coaches will be Nat Granger and just waiting on confirmation of a fowards coach.

You do need to Register your intention to trial before Monday 24th September.
Please e-mail Amanda Bate, Team Manager the following essential details.
1.Name
2.Address
3. mobile number
4.date of birth
5.County of birth if you do not live in  or play rugby in Herts
6.Club you play for.
7. please give your 2 most preferred positions you would like to play in.

Any questions, do please ask.

"Title IX for the UK"? Should sport equality be a legal requirement?

An interesting article appeared today about how to achieve a more level playing field in UK sport, and in particular whether we can learn from a US initiative called Title IX.

This was an amendment made to higher education law in the US back in 1972. Quite simply, it said that when it came to funding and participation no universities could discriminate between sports based on sex. Actually (needless to say) its a bit more complex than that in practice, and controversial, but it is widely believed to be the reason why female sports participation has grown by up to nine times since 1972, and why female US athletes won more medals in this years Olympics than men.

The question is whether we need something similar over here. Obviously the US is a very different place - university sport is hugely important over there, whereas in this country to say that "no-one cares" would be a gross understatement - primary school sport probably gets more interest and coverage.

So, while a Title IX applying to university sport funding would be a nice thing, its pretty unlikely that it would have the sort of effect it has had in the US. However there are plenty of other sports bodies that are publicly funded which could be put under similar requirements - Sports Councils, for example, or individual sport clubs and governing bodies. So, if a club received a grant, it would have to comply with Title IX-type regulations.

The article asks for feedback as well, so what do you think?

Congratulations to North Herts Crusaders

Congrats to anyone involved with North Herts Crusaders (men's) RL team - East League winners in their first ever season, which is pretty amazing. Okay, not a women's team so slightly off topic, but major regional titles don't come to this area that often in any sport, leave alone one based in Letchworth.

The team was based round a pretty solid core of pretty talented players from Letchworth RFC (which bodes well for them next season I guess), so they were hardly new to this sort of sport (though RLis a bit different) but still...pretty impressive.

The scoreline (63-30) was even more remarkable considering the team they beat certainly were not newcomers to the game.

So well done everyone - and worth a reminder that if enough women over the age of 16 wanted to play the game NHC have said that they would be welcome.

A whole new piece of kit

Details of the latest law amendments were published recently. Some, concerning rucks and scrum engagement have already been the subject of much discussion - not to say ridicule in some quarters. However there are a few others that are worthy of comment.

1. GPS. Players can wear GPS equipment during games.This apparently is not in order to ensure that the concussed props know which way to face after half-time, nor is it to ensure that the game can continue on particularly foggy days - apparently it is because some professional clubs now monitor exactly where each player goes during the game. Amazing. The coaches will be using remote control next...

2. Tights. Female players can now wear "cotton blend long tights with single inside leg seam under their shorts and socks". It will be interesting to see how long it will be before such tights appear in equipment catalogues, what funky colours will be on view, and how quickly we will see equipment logos on them.

3. Conversions. Apparently kickers will now have 90 seconds to do their dances, throw grass into the air, say their prayers, smile for the camera, give interviews, sign autographs and generally waste time before they kick the ball. Why? 60 seconds always seemed more than enough.

More seriously, there are some interesting videos for referees (but also good for players) highlighting the things that refs are supposed to be particularly looking for next season.

Great Britain women win World University Championship

The FISU World University Championship for women's rugby sevens has been won by Great Britain for (I think) the first time. A powerful squad packed with internationals breezed to the title with wins over Romania (27-0), Japan (31-5), Spain (24-0); Belgium (26-5); Italy (38-5) and, in the final, hosts France (24-7).

This represented a pretty significant improvement on the last championship in 2010 where GB finished only 7th. The reason for this is that, for the first time, the British unions have taken the tournament seriously and allowed current internationals to take part, as well as releasing England's Susie Appleby to coach the team.

Lead by Emily Scarratt (Leeds Metropolitan), who scored one of their four tries against France, the team included players from universities in England, Scotland and Wales and, as well as Emily, featured players such as Izzy Noel-Smith, Vicky Fleetwood, Sarah McKenna, and Steph Johnston. Vicky and Izzy had also played in 2010, before they became England internationals.

The GB men's team also won their tournament.

Sasha completes Legendary bike ride

For those who have not been following it, Sasha Acheson and Poppy Cleall have just completed an amazing charity cycle ride from Land's End to John O'Groats... and back!

One month, over 1700 miles, and over £2000 raised (more than twice their target).

Congratulations girls!

If this is true, is it fraud?

A few weeks ago I reported a dramatic (but generally unpublicised) rise in player numbers in England, as reported by the RFU to the IRB.

The adult player number rise made sense - it matched the sort of numbers that have been reported by Sport England for some years. However, the rise in junior player numbers was extraordinary - like a 3,000 to 10,000% rise in reported player numbers since 2009, which (even with under-reporting of girls) seemed difficult to believe. However, it is rise that is being used to support the RFUW (and now RFU) policy on the U13 game.

What was not clear was where on earth this data came from as a claim that there are over 129,000 teenage girls playing rugby just does not match with the declining number of teams playing in leagues, etc. In short - wherever this figure comes from it certainly is not (solely) club registrations - it must now include schools as well.

Okay, if that does include schools then - in theory - that is fine. A girl playing regularly at school can learn the game just as much as at a club, and will be quite capable of moving onto divisional play, etc.

However the key here is "regular". Girls who play in just one tournament, based on maybe a handful of PE lessons and no regular programme of inter-school matches - and no club rugby - are not rugby players. To call them so is a nonsense. They had - at best - sampled the game.

But  I hear from a well placed source in one region, that that is what is happening. I am told that junior player numbers in this area are being extrapolated from the "100 or so girls from six schools turning up for ONE school tournament for Year 6 and 7".

For a game's officials to pretend that these are "real" players is at best dangerous self-delusion. Dangerous because it can hide endemic problems within the game, which - in this particular region (a region that was until recently one of the strongest in the country) - seems to be the virtual collapse of the club game at U15 and U18 level. It means that an official, changed with expanding the game, can hit all their "targets" despite what is happening in the real world.

However, if a game is knowingly using this meaningless data to extract grants from government by pretending that the game is dramatically expanding and has many more players than it does then... is that not fraud?

One defence might be that everyone else is doing it - and I am told that Rugby League in the same region is using similar methods to compile its junior player data.  Its not much of a defence, though. And even if it was, it does give a picture of various sports - including rugby union - spending so much time and money coming up with ever more clever (but ultimately meaningless) schemes to increasing player statistics that they do little or nothing to increase the actual numbers of players. Frankly, the people who involved in this sound like a load of bankers.

And its all probably not unrelated to the report last week that pointed out how few people from state schools (as opposed to independent schools) now make it to the top and win, for example, Olympic medals - because most of this grant money is supposed to support and develop talented state school sports people.

I may be wrong, of course - and if anyone has any more evidence one way or another I'd love to see it.