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. 

A weekend at the London Sevens...

The biggest thing since the 2010 World Cup, and the first international women's sevens ever held in England, last weekend's IRB Women's Challenge at the London Sevens was an incredible occasion and experience - especially for the media representatives present (er... me and Alison Donnelly of ScrumQueens).

All the facts and figures are on ScrumQueens, but from what I saw and from discussions with players from many countries a few random thoughts and impressions about international women's rugby...

Kelly van Harskamp - a distracting interviewee (see below)

• Spain's main players were given a choice between 7s and 15s this season - all bar one chose 7s. No other country is quite as "democratic" - English and French players go and play where their coaches tell them!
• Spain are a very strong team (not playing in London) but one of their leading players told me that she believed that Spain have perhaps 20 international quality players (7s and 15s combined)
• French players told me how difficult it as for them as they 7s squad rarely play together - they have yet to develop an "automatic understanding" together... and it showed. They were very disappointed by their 8th in London.
• Girls rugby is growing in Netherlands. Player numbers are up 15% and some schools are offering the game.
• An official IRB ranking system based on the men's system should be in place by year end - once all nations have signed off on their acceptance on The List. The status of matches in tournaments will depend of tournament organisers (ie. FIRA, for instance), while for friendlies tests will be tests if both sides agree on the status.
• A calendar for women's XVs tours for up to 4 years ahead should be agreed this year.
• Brazil, Argentine, Columbia and Uruguay are very interested in expanding into XVs in the near future - but IRB are trying to ensure that they and other ambitious nations can walk before they run to ensure games are not cancelled etc.
• Trinidad are similarly hoping to break out of the Caribbean
• China's rugby sounds like a fragile soufflé - a thin crust of mainly students and elite players, but almost no club structure below it.
• "New" names to keep an eye on from outside the Usual Suspects - Paula Ishibashi (Brazil); Fan Wenjuan (China); Anna Yakoleva (Kazakhstan); Koletsa Gadu (South Africa). Paula and Anna especially - Anna was an extraordinary glint of sevens gold in a very 15s-y Kaz team. She can do everything - kicking, great handling, runs superb lines, fast, strong - and the loudest voice on the field. You KNOW when Anna is playing!
• All national coaches (and most national squads!) live up to national stereotypes. Without exception. If you want to party, follow the Brazilians. The happiest team with the wildest supporters are the Dutch (even before their wins). Portugal are fun to be with too. Americans and Canadians are very scientific with all kinds of American football-style Plays. And so on.
• Most women's teams plays 7s like its 15s. The Dutch are the big exception.
• Dutch players are all at least 6 inches taller than players from anywhere else - and if they can match their technical ability with a bit more power and strength they could be devastating.
• England players seem to have a level of media training akin to leading politicians.
• Dutch star player Kelly van Harskamp has the most amazing deep brown eyes which are incredibly distracting when you are trying to interview her.

Women's rugby test match list gains equality with men's game

If you will forgive me one small moment of self-congratulation, the list of women's test matches that I began researching in about 2005 has now had official approval! The IRB have loaded the entire list onto their database, alongside the men's list. At last women's and men's test match rugby has statistical parity!

Quite when they did this I have no idea as they did not tell me, and still haven't. I had been wondering why various Unions have been quoting information that I recognised as "mine" but sort of assumed they'd been using the version that is on Wikipedia - which is what Sky etc. do.

But no - a PR guy at the Swedish RFU who I was chatting to today said he'd got all his info off the IRB website. But no, I said, there's precious little women's info on there - to which he replied "go take a look".

And there is is, in its wonderful fully searchable glory! Whoop, whoop and whoop again!

Okay, I don't actually get any credit anywhere - but I know its my research, which is good enough.

I just hope they keep it up to date!

Self congratulation mode off.

And you thought the season was over...

The weekend actually sees the start of a pretty hectic time in the world of women's rugby. The qualification process for (slightly confusingly) two different world cup kicks up a gear, with international players jetting from tournament to tournament in a madly compressed but - from the sidelines - rather fascinating few weeks.

To start with the 15-a-side World Cup may be over two years away, but the hopes of at least two nation's players - Russia and Finland - are already over as they lost on Thursday to Sweden and Netherlands. These two should have been playing today in a sudden death play-off for a place in the final European Qualifier next year, had not FIRA and the IRB changed the rules on Thursday morning. So instead they will simply be playing for an attractive piece of glassware (see above) and the European Championship "B" title.

Should actually be a very interesting game as, with most of the leading Dutch players playing sevens, the teams are exceedingly well match - the slight Dutch advantaged balanced out by Swedish home advantage.

Today also sees the climax of the French club championship - or at least the league section as they play well into June. I suspect that few readers here will be interested by this, but having been following it for Scrumqueens all year it has been fascinating - and rugby in the south of France certainly has its attractions.

Anyway, this weekend is just a foretaste of what is to come. Next Saturday the London Sevens kicks off with its (and the UK's) first ever proper international sevens tournament. Twelve great teams - not quite the world's best as there are a few obvious gaps (Spain are not there, for heaven's sake!), but should be amazing. England, Australia, Canada, USA, Netherlands...

Then in London, as the second day kicks off, in Italy the European 15s championship begins, with England playing Spain, and France against Italy. In many ways this should have been a classic, but all teams have put sevens first and have significantly weakened squads. England are flying out several players from London for the second and third round of games later in the week and actually should now stroll this as, even without reinforcements, they now have easily the strongest squad. Pity.

Never mind though as in the middle of the week - just down the road from the 15s championship and neatly clashing with the second round of games - Rome Sevens takes place, with a New Zealand team, Italy, and several other nations - before we get the Amsterdam Sevens, starting on the 19th - genuinely the biggest women's sevens tournament since the last world cup.

All this is all just a warm-up. Because in June 36 European countries will take part in the continent's sevens championship and world cup qualification process - a long and complex affair spread over four tournaments in four countries in three weeks.

It is going to be an exhausting six weeks of intense international competition, and - it is worth remembering that - in an almost entirely amateur sport.

The forgotten anniversary?

This weekend England meet Wales at Twickenham. Although England have played New Zealand and every other team in the Six Nations at the "Home of Rugby", this will be the first time they will have played their oldest international rivals at rugby's most famous ground. So it'll be a special day.

But it should also be a special day for one other reason. Wales are England's oldest opponents because their first meeting was also England's first ever international - and that momentous occasion was 25 years ago this year.

A quarter-century of England (and Welsh) international women's rugby. But you should not need reminding of that - you should have seen the celebratory articles on the RFU website and in the rugby press, as well as the retrospectives, the TV specials, the dinners, the parades of former players, the exhibition at the Rugby Museum, the stamps, the special coins?

No? Me neither, oddly enough...

Okay the actual 25th anniversary of the date of that first ever game is still a few weeks off - 5th April in fact - but you'd think that, if anyone was going to make the slightest effort to recognise this, then having the two teams together at Twickenham this weekend in front of the BBC's cameras would be the time to do it. It would be the time to say - look, women's rugby has come a long way and has a history to be proud of!

Or you could just ignore this great publicity opportunity... Yes, much easier to do that...

A video was made of the first ever international 25 years - and to celebrate the anniversary the Welsh RFU have just removed it from their website. Well done Wales - brilliant timing!


***Apparently RFU are planning something... for 5th April. After all the crowds and TV cameras have gone.

Teams announced for second IRB Women's Challenge Cup

As the poster on the right reveals, the 12 teams for the second official IRB women's sevens will be...

• Australia (World champions)
• Brazil (South American champions)
• Canada (Winners in Dubai)
• China (Asian champions)
• England (European champions)
• Hong Kong (hosts)
• Japan (Asian no. 3)
• Netherlands (European no. 3)
• Russia (World Cup hosts, European no. 4)
• Spain (European no. 2)
• Tunisia (Africa North/West champions)
• USA (Las Vegas finalists)

How much we can read into this about the 12 who will take part in the women's "tour" that should start next season is debatable. South Africa - who were in Dubai - are not listed, either because they could not make it or because the IRB wanted to be fair and offer a place to another African team (who knows - but probably the former is more likely). Either way, they would be normally expected to be the strongest side on the continent. Their replacements, Tunisia, are the strongest side in the north of the continent - but have rarely played outside Africa before. It is unlikely they will be a major worry for the leading teams.

France - third in Las Vegas - are also absent, still paying for 15 minutes of madness against Portugal last summer. Russia take the fourth European spot as a result.

Similarly Hong Kong have a long history but, as Japan found in Las Vegas, will struggle to match the pace and stamina of the professional teams. All of the pro sides will be in Hong Kong - the inclusion of Netherlands is a step forward, though they will probably still be without Kelly van Harskamp, ScrumQueens leading sevens players of 2011.

In fact the tournament neatly divides itself down the middle into two groups - the "possibles" who could all, in theory, have a shout at at least a semi-final place - Australia, Canada, England, Netherlands, Spain and USA - and the rest who, realistically, will have their targets set on bowls and plates.

IRB plan for the next five years

The IRB plan for women's rugby has finally been published, some months after the IRB first announced it, but its still worth a look.

The report claims that women's rugby is now played by 200,000 players in 110 countries - in both cases probably a bit of an underestimate, but rather more accurate than most IRB data on the subject in recent years. The report highlights how much interest and enthusiasm for the game has increased in recent years - but that there are still perception problems that get in the way of the game's expansion. One problem is that women's rugby tends to be seen as a financial burden by many in the game - even though research shows that, in fact, women's sport is a major missed commercial opportunity.

Interestingly (because this blog has been banging on about it for years) the report also specifically looks at U12 girls' rugby, and whether there should be more girls-only rugby at that age (rather than forcing girls to play mixed rugby).

It is no surprise to see that over the next five years- which takes us up to 2016 - the IRB's main thrust will be sevens, developing elite women's programmes in all Unions, with the aim of increasing player numbers. In fact there are some really ambitious targets for 2016...

• 400,000 players
• Women's rugby in every Union, with women's rugby represented on all Unions, regional bodies, and the IRB
• An official XVs calendar from 2012
• Women's sevens World Series by 2013
• Age grade regional (ie. continental) sevens tournaments
• Women's sevens at the Youth Olympics in 2014
• Women's rugby to be a "commercially viable product" by 2014, with increased TV coverage

Which is all pretty impressive. Quite what would happen in a Union failed to develop the women's game - or actively refused to support the game (as with Iran) isn't covered - one would hope that there would  ultimately be some sanctions.

On the subject of the world sevens series, there is more information than we have had before.For example, there will be at least four tournaments per year, with 12 teams at each event - again as this blog suspected. The top 12 teams at the 2013 World Cup will make up the compete in the following season - but after that there will be promotion and relegation.

Half of the teams for the Olympics will be the various 2015 regional champions - but the other six teams will be selected via a worldwide qualification process, so in theory there might be only one European team in Rio... or there might be as many as seven!

There is also a commitment to more test matches and XVs tournaments - and a competition model is included. Interestingly this includes an annual Asian XVs - even though this rarely happens - but does NOT include the Caribbean XVs, despite this being a firmly established annual event.

Finally, from the end of this year, it is intended that there will be official rankings for teams both at sevens and fifteens... which should be interesting.

International Sevens ready to begin

While the Six Nations captures all the headlines (metaphorically of course - since when was the last time any women's rugby captured any real newspaper coverage?) major women's sevens teams are making their final preparations for the start of a vital year which lead up to qualification for next year's Sevens World Cup.

Six of the world's major teams will meet in Las Vegas next weekend, and at least one of them will be looking forward to a significant change of climate. Its been a bit nippy in the Netherlands over the past week - far more so than here - and this picture shows the world's only professional women's rugby team packing up and leaving. From -18 overnight, to +18 later today - quite a change!

Also taking part will be the USA, Canada, France, Brazil and Japan - as well as the US and Canadian second string teams.

New Zealand begin their Search for a Sevens team

Its a method of selection that (if this article is right) sounds closer to a prime-time reality TV than rugby, but New Zealand have begun their search for a 2016 Olympic Star.

80 hopefuls began today, who will be whittled down to 30. Then another cut a bit more before public trial game, after which they'll get the final squad. I think. When it is put like this you really do expect Graham Norton and Andrew Lloyd Webber to be involved...

In fact the guy in charge is one Sean Horan, who is a gifted coach, but could maybe learn to leave off on the patronising just a bit - "What I learnt most from the last week was that the female athletes take things on board very quickly and they are very intelligent when it comes to playing the game".

Perhaps its just reads worse than he meant...

Second Women's IRB Sevens to be announced

The second official IRB Women's Sevens will take place in Hong Kong between 23rd and 25th March.

There does not seem to have been any official announcement - yet - but Netherlands today announced that they have been invited to take part, which implies some changes to the structure of the tournament - probably to 12 teams - which is not a problem as the women's Hong Kong Sevens normally 12 or more teams.

Netherlands also announced that they have been invited to play in the London Sevens which is "almost sorted". We also know that Canada and France are intending to be there, so another 12 or more team event is presumably planned.

When the official announcement will be made is not yet known - at a guess they want to announce both events together - but clearly the IRB are making sure that all of the teams they want are ready to go when they do the big reveal.

If it is a 12 team event then ten of the teams are fairly obvious - Canada, England, Australia, Spain, Brazil, China, USA, South Africa, France, Netherlands. Quite who the others might be is more of a guess, but logically they would be "local" teams like Japan or maybe Fiji in Hong Kong, and maybe Wales and Scotland in London?

More on the "London Sevens"

Apparently the "London Sevens" is still unconfirmed. It is not an issue about a lack of teams - clearly several leading teams have already put the week aside in the diaries so keen are they to take part - but more an issue of the IRB recognising it.

RFUW certainly want it to take place, alongside the men's IRB London Sevens, as a second IRB-recognised event (after Dubai last year) - but everyone is waiting for the internal wheels at the IRB to grind their way forward (slowed as they are by the usual combination of funding and politics).

The only snag is clearly that time is running out... and teams may start to commit to alternatives (like Amsterdam) instead.

U20 Euro Championship - not this year

More news on the proposed U20 four nations, mentioned below.

RFUW have confirmed that they did propose the tournament, and did offer to run it, but Wales and Scotland later withdrew. England will still play host to France for the same week, playing two internationals, but the exciting new initiative that was the "U20 Four Nations" will not take place - this year at least.

With Wales and Scotland also withdrawing from the senior European XVs championship you have to wonder again what the heck is going on. Though both nations have U20 teams I am not sure that either now have any fixtures planned for 2012, while Scotland's newly-formed A team also seems to have a pretty thin season ahead.

While cost is always an issue, surely a tournament in the UK over the Bank Holiday week could not have been a better or more cost effective means to develop the next generation of international players, especially for Wales who have no programme of matches at all outside the Six Nations.

Perhaps they want to concentrate on preparations for the Women's Sevens World Cup qualifiers, which would be reasonable if it were not for the fact that, frankly, neither stands much chance of qualifying. In the meanwhile Scotland, at least, desperately need to improve their performances at XVs otherwise they will be watching the 2014 World Cup from the sidelines.

Nothing but praise should go to RFUW in taking the initiative to propose and organise the event - a shame that the other home nations are unable to be so far sighted.

London Women's Sevens?

Another event that there has been no official publicity for, but which seems to have sneaked into the calendars of at least two national teams, is a London International Women's Sevens - apparently to be played on the weekend of the 12th-13th May.

At first glance some of us thought that this was a misunderstanding and that maybe they meant the Amsterdam Sevens - but that is now the following week.

All that is known is that both Canada and France are definitely intending to take part - so its not just some hyped-up club event. With the World's Number One coming it's going to be pretty serious.

Its probable that England will be there too (though you can never be sure about such things) and you'd also assume that the likes of Wales and Scotland would also want to take an opportunity to warm up before their World Cup qualifier in June (but again, who knows?). Sweden have also used UK sevens to get ready for European tournaments in the past, so their participation would not be unexpected.

But at this stage who can say. Secrecy remains. Hopefully we will all be told more some time before 12th May.

European Championship mystery

2012 should be the year of the Women's European Rugby Championship. It happens once every four years, in between the World Cups, and normally features the top eight national teams in the A tournament, and all of the rest in a B tournament.

In 2000 10 teams took part, in 2004 this rose to 12, and in 2008 13. But in 2012 only eight teams will be in the championship (see here for fixture information)

The A event, in Italy, will include only four teams - England, France, Italy and Spain - and the B competition will only include Finland, Netherlands, Russia and Sweden. This also means that - for the first time - Scotland, Wales and Ireland do not seem to have entered the European Championship.

Quite why is anyone's guess - but it seems very odd. It is certainly not a positive development step by these Unions (especially Ireland who do not even have the excuse of preparing for the Sevens World Cup).

Great try compilation from Dubai

Okay - its Spain's tries, not England;s, but as clearly every game was videoed presumably any of the competing nations could do likewise. Anyway, that aside there are some brilliant tries here.

The sheer acceleration of Julia Pla (from about 4:35) is amazing, and the rather undignified penalty given away by Brazil from 3:10 is pretty amusing! But there is much more. Enjoy.

And if you do enjoy that, the full recording of Canada v Spain is well worth watching.

If anyone knows of any other similar compilations, let me know!

Third Test photo diary

The Black Ferns have again published a "photo diary", this time covering yesterday's third test. Again - well worth a look.

The RFU are also promising to post their highlights package shortly. Watch this space!

IRB Dubai Sevens: almost right, but...

The "experiment" of the IRB's women's challenge sevens seems, going by all reaction so far, to have been a great success and hopefully from here we can go on to a proper women's series (though the barrier to that is likely to be finding a home for the fourth leg, London and Edinburgh not showing much interest).

If we do go on from here then the main improvements would seem to be...

Get the seeding right. Giving Canada a seeding below USA - while true to the World Cup positions in 2009 - seemed otherwise a strange idea by the IRB. The result was a serious imbalance in the pools that was obvious from the moment they were announced, with Spain (who, it should be remembered, lead Canada 14-0 past halfway in their game) losing out. The Spanish would certainly have been a match for the USA.

The best 8 teams in the world? Well, obviously these were not the best eight teams. Even leaving aside New Zealand's refusal to join in the fun, the fact is that China, and particularly Brazil, were heavily outclassed and its possible to come up with half-a-dozen teams that could, perhaps, have equipped themselves better.

However there is, of course, a very good argument for including them in the tournament (in order to represent parts of the world where the game is growing and developing), but if geography is to be allowed to trump ability then why does Asia and South America get a leg up by not - say - the Caribbean or Pacific? Why should China get a free ride into the tournament but not Samoa, or Fiji (either would be stronger than China)? And why Brazil and not, say, Trinidad?

In short, the qualification criteria for any series next season need to be clear and open. It does not do the game, or IRB, any good if decisions of this importance are taken behind closed doors with no explanation.

That aside, an announcement about a series for next year cannot be long coming. Its certainly long overdue.

Honours even as international year ends

So, 8-8 in Esher between New Zealand and England. Highlights should be on the RFU website probably some time tomorrow. Match report up on ScrumQueens now.

While all that was going on, England's sevens team's brave run came to an end in the final against Canada. After a great start, Canada gradually took control and dominated the second half, winning 26-7 and proving that they are by far the world's best women's sevens team,

Even their development side beat France, but could not complete a double, losing to the Netherlands in the Women's Invitational - the first ever Dutch tournament win.

And so a year ends that has seen 95 nations field official women's international rugby teams, at either 7s or 15s - plus a few other countries that have fielded club teams by no national team. Because the media largely ignore it we often forget how big women's rugby is - no other team sport, apart from football, even comes close. This year also saw 54 test matches and over 400 7s internationals - by far the busiest year ever, so the game is also expanding pretty quickly as well.

Unique women's international rugby double-bill

Following England's sensational win over World Champions Australia in the Dubai 7s this morning, we could have a double bill of women's international rugby today.

At 2pm England kick-off the third test against New Zealand - again free live webfeed from http://www.rfu.com/englandwomenlive which hopefully will work properly this time.

Then, at around 3.20pm England's sevens team is due to play their final against Canada - which should be shown on Sky Sports 1. They have the media rights, and showed the semi. No guarantees... but someone should have a word with them if they fail to show the game.

This does mean that you may have to watch two games on two screens at the same time!

• In the meanwhile you can view a recording of the 80 minutes from Tuesday - again go to http://www.rfu.com/englandwomenlive
• Also a big shout-out of congratulations to Canada, who have reached TWO finals - their reserve, development squad beat France to reach the Women's Invitational final, where they will play the Netherlands. 

Dubai round-up, Day 1

The first day of the first official IRB sevens has finished, largely predictably, but with some surprises.

The first surprise seems to be that felt by the Australian captain (right). Clearly no-one had told her that she would be forced to wear this natty little ensemble instead of the hallowed Green and Gold. She is not happy, is she?

What colour would you call it? Gang-green maybe? Slightly nausea inducing anyway. England's rep, on the other hand, will have already known that she would have to dress like Tommy the Tiger and had already chosen the tactic of hiding in the background instead of standing holding the cup (which, as No. 2 seeds, she should have done).

Anyway, crimes against fashion and good taste aside, the rugby has been competitive. As expected, Pool A was a ding-dong affair with Spain coming so close against Australian, and then throwing away a 14-0 lead to Canada before losing 19-14 from the final play of the game, before Canada beating Australia 14-7 (Australia's only points coming near the end). Any of these three games (with the possible exception of the final one) could have gone either way, which - if anything - shows how badly the IRB got the seeding wrong here. All three teams swept past Brazil with embarrassing ease.

England won Pool B - which is not a huge surprise, though the size of their win over the only serious challengers - USA - was remarkable (31-0), especially after England had only beaten South Africa by three points. Michaela Staniford was the hero, fresh from the Black Fern tests, she scored in every game.

The result is this is that USA will play Canada in one semi-final tomorrow, and England will play Australia - not, I am tempted to say, the semis that the organisers will have wanted, but games full of tension and history Australia will love to get some revenge for the WRWC semi-final defeat - and will probably be favourites to do just that - not least because they already have the experience of playing all their games in the main stadium, while England have bee plying their trade outside, a situation that seems very unfair by tells us where the TV power lies (Sky have the rights to this tournament in the UK and ignored the women's tournament completely).

Elsewhere, Netherlands and France moved pretty easily towards their inevitable final meeting in the Women's Invitational - a game which should see the Dutch record their first major tournament win.