England feature in new online magazine

A stunning image of Fiona Pocock scoring one of her hat-trick of tries from last weekend (and maybe, let's be honest here, showing off a bit?). It comes from a relaunch of the free online Rugby Player magazine, published for the Six Nations.

Unfortunately the magazine only gives the women two pages and also seems to believe that there is only one team playing in the women's six nations, but at least the photography is good.

One other matter of note is the advert on page 16 for the Play On scheme which seems to neatly edit out the more objectionable features of the original artwork. For a few moments you might think that RFU had realised their earlier mistake, but unfortunately this would appear to be chance as RFU have made no attempt to rein in the images on their actual website which remains the most jaw-droppingly inept piece of staggeringly sexist imagery that I am aware of on any official sporting website, anywhere.

The weekend ahead

Weather and player availability permitting most of us will hopefully be playing Norfolk Nomads and Suffolk Sabres in Wymondham this weekend (pronounced "Windham", incidentally!). However one of our number, Jess, should be off to Old Albanians with East Region for their rearranged game against Thames Valley - and it is this rearranged fixture that is probably the greatest threat to our game as it is taking away alot of players from both of our U15 and U18 opponents.  More details as soon as they are available. 

Its also going to be a busy weekend in adult rugby. Hitchin have a crucial league game, and England will be playing in Wales and California... at the same time.

In the Six Nations England travel to Taffs Well, near Cardiff, to play Wales. It will be the 26th international between the two teams, and all 25 previous games have gone to England. This year should not be any different, but - due to the Sevens - England are not quite at full strength (though there is only one change from last week) and Wales have probably never been stronger so this should be closer than previous years.

Elsewhere Ireland should have no problems in Italy - and may even break a record as they (remarkably) have never previously scored more than 22 points in Six Nations international. However, as they showed against France, though Ireland can dominate games actually putting points on the board does remain a weakness. And on Sunday Scotland play France in Arras, which should see France record their opening win in this year's championship.

Meanwhile starting today England will also be playing in the San Diego Sevens, their final warm-up before the World Cup, where they will take on other World Cup qualifiers New Zealand, USA, Canada and Japan. Other qualifiers France, Spain and Italy will also be playing in another tournament in Spain.

And slightly closer to home Hitchin have a must-win league game against Slough. The Hayley fan club might wish to visit Hitchin agains as she has been invited to play in this game if our games do not go ahead.

Training tonight!

Although the pitches are still under a good covering of snow and the ground is frozen solid, Wonky tells me that training will go ahead tonight ... indoors.

As we (hopefully, weather permitting, etc.) have fixtures with Norfolk Nomads U15s and Suffolk Sabres U18s at Wymondham this weekend, a get-together is well overdue so please come along to the club at the regular time of 6pm.

Practice your... physics?

As a follow on to the German practice earlier today, we now move on to science. Ida Bernstein - a member of the US Sevens team and physics graduate - has decided to approach several aspects of rugby from a physicists point of view.

I'm not entirely sure what to make of it all - other than coming to the conclusion that members of the US Sevens squad either a) have too much time on their hands, or b) are going stir crazy (though I seem to remember from Ida's previous writings that she may not have had far to go on that). 

Or maybe both.

Anyway... enjoy!

Practice your German

Long article in Der Spiegal this week - Auf der Jagd nach dem Ei - about Daniela Mück, an 18 year old girl who plays rugby for Stuttgart in Germany. 

Interesting to discover how popular the game is in a country that we would not normally associate with the sport - but its worth remembering that Germany qualified for next month's Sevens World Cup... which is more than Wales, Scotland or Ireland could do.

One other observation is that snow does not seem to bother them too much:

Meet the Yetis

These are the girls due to visit us from British Columbia next month (and therefore also the girls we are looking for beds for...). 

Coach John LaBoyne (who I presume - indeed hope - is the one pictured front right) has been following us on the blog and says that he can see where some would not want a nine foot tall, foul smelling, 80 stone woodlands creature in their house.  However, while that may be true of the males of the species, he can assure you the females are not as tall.  The above photo was from their practice yesterday (a couple of players missing due to illness). 

 

Recent pictures on her made them right at home. They train on an indoor pitch when the fields are covered in snow - an unheated (he emphasises this point) old ice hockey arena with "field turf fake grass" - and apparently the girls water bottles froze while we were on the field yesterday, so they are hardy souls. Only other snag is that they only get access to this for two hours every two weeks, and their next practice has been cancelled for a football tournament (round ball version), so they only have one more practice session on March 8th before they depart for the sunny UK (hmmm....). 

They are looking forward to meeting us all - which reminds me, as well as beds are there any volunteers to help organise (or just suggest) post-game (or pre-, depending on timings) festivities a la I E Weldon? 

Obviously there are the is crackers game, Twix, Bomber, and the broomstick - not to mention that really painful one with two chairs and rugby ball (Nim was the star last time - who will take her place?). Anyone know of any other good ones? Clearly the honour of the team and indeed nation will rest on this - we cannot afford to lose this time! Suggest our new captain gets into practice with the family sweeping brush...

Media coverage of women's rugby: the worse you are the more coverage you get?

When you question the lack of press, radio and TV coverage of women's rugby you normally get the assurance that the media love success, and that once England win the World Cup they will get the coverage the deserve.

If that is so then, going by last weekend's trawl for information and coverage of the first round of the Six Nations, something weird is going on - because, from what I have seen and what others have reported about coverage of the weekend's game, the worse the national team is the more coverage they got (at least in the British and Irish media, I can't really talk about France or Italy!).

For example, certainly before and to a lesser extent after the game the Scottish newspapers gave really excellent coverage to their women's team. Two or three newspapers wrote quite long article, and the match was at least filmed.

Wales also were well covered - especially by the BBC with videoed interviews on the BBC Wales website, and match highlights on BBC Wales TV's Scrum V last night. And Ireland did almost as well, both before and after the game.

Which just leaves England, arguably the best team in the world, ignored. Okay the BBC and one or two other websites did reproduce (almost without amendment) the RFUW's pre-game press release, but other than that I have not been able to find anything that could be described as "journalism" (ie. creative, intellegent, writing). Sky did a couple of minutes on the Rugby Club, but then did not even mention the game on their website - not so much as a scoreline. 

BBC Radio and TV commentators - in the hours and hours of coverage - also could not bring themselves to mention the women's team's efforts, and the BBC's rugby pages included every rugby game down to villages playing in the Welsh second division - but totally failed to include any women's games in its list. And yet BBC Radio did find time for a long interview with members of the England women's cricket team about a tournament that does not happen until next month!

Maybe I missed something somewhere, but coverage - of England in particular - is dreadful. Personally I suspect the problem is the attitudes of commentators and rugby writers, but whatever its annoyed me so much this weekend I've written to the BBC to complain. If you think they could do better (including the fixtures and results in their collated results pages might be a start!) then why not drop them a line as well - no need for a stamp, just go here.

Welsh win completes Six Nations first round.

The first round of Six Nations games finished today with Wales recording their biggest win over Scotland since their first meeting in 1993. With full-back Non Evans scoring 21 points, reports suggest that Wales were rarely troubled, running out comfortable 31-10 winners (see here for full report and here for match hightlights)

After the first round of games, therefore, the women's six nations table (below) bears a remarkable resemblance to the men's:

Position	Nation	Games				Points		Table points
		played	won	drawn	lost	for	against
1	England	1	1	0	0	69	13	2
2	Wales	1	1	0	0	31	10	2
3	Ireland	1	1	0	0	7	5	2
4	France	1	0	0	1	5	7	0
5	Scotland	1	0	0	1	10	31	0
6	Italy	1	0	0	1	13	69	0

However, based on what we have seen on TV this weekend, chances are this will not be true in a week's time...

• Incidentally, in all the coverage of rugby this weekend on TV, radio etc., did anyone hear or see any mention of games in the women's competition? Anywhere? Just wondered...

Impressive start by England

Despite concerns yesterday, England's internationals at London Welsh went ahead on schedule today and England A - the "second team" - began proceedings when they were clear winners of their morning match against Spain, running in five tries in a 29-0 victory (see report). 

As the A team had also beaten Italy by a similar score in December the pressure was on the First Team when they began their game shortly afterwards. A win would not be enough for a relatively young team - a big win was needed. And they obliged. By the end of the game England had run in 11 tries, winning 69-13 - not quite as good as last year - but that was a more experienced England XV.

Emily Scarratt, ex-Paviors centre (though she tended to play on the wing when against us?) scored two tries. However that was not as good as another young player, wing Fiona Pocock (probably a member of the Petersfield team we met at our first Beckenham Festival), who scored a hat-trick - though it was also her loose pass close to her own line that let in Italy for their only try (full match report)

Still - a good start for England. But next week is the big test.

Ireland make dramatic start to Six Nations

Just to prove how hard it is to get accurate information about women's rugby, I couldn't event get the date right for this one! 

However I woke up this morning and logged on to discover reports on what sounds as if it was as dramatic and exciting a game as was expected when last night Ireland took on France at the rearranged venue of Ashbourne RFC in rural (but less snowbound) Co Meath.

A crowd of only 300 managed to make the game, but they witnessed what sounds a memorable, if low scoring, battle. Ireland dominated play in the first half, but were rewarded with just two penalties, both kickable, and both missed by fly-half Nimah Briggs - so the teams went in at halftime 0-0.

The deadlock was broken 13 minutes into the second half, and most reports agree on two things. First it was against the balance of play, and second it was brilliant. The entire French backline was involved in a move that sent Cathy Langenfeld over in the right corner, but crucially leaving a kick that was too difficult for the French to convert.

The Irish did not give up, but a note of desparation comes across in reports as the clock tricked down. The backs dominated but could not find a way through, so it was left to the forwards to take the ball from a line-out on the French 22 before they ruck and mauled their way, inch by inch, to the line. After what must have been an agony of delay eventually the referee gave a try to Fiona Coughlan - then Briggs kicked the extras.

But the drama was not over yet. In the dying moments of the game France were given a penalty, well out by not impossible, but a kick which Caroline Ladagnous could not make.

So a first ever win for Ireland over France - a dramatic start to the Six Nations - and a confirmation that the traditional also-rans of the tournament have, in only two or three season, become one of the leading teams. The fact that the women's and men's unions also merged two or three years ago is, of course, sheer co-incidence.

• No news on this afternoon's England game. RFU/RFUW website silent since lunchtime yesterday.

Magnificent desolation

Parts of Devon (not too far from where we went on tour) has had two feet of snow and, while its not quite as bad at that at the club, I thought you might like to see why perhaps play this weekend might have been a shade difficult.

The lack of clear lines would be something of a problem, along with perhaps the 4 or more inches of untouched snow...

Quite what the ground will look like once this melts is interesting to speculate - the bottom pitch was pretty muddy before this week!

All regional games off

All regional games across the country have been cancelled this weekend - and the RFUW have confirmed that the junior games will be replayed next Sunday while the senior games will now be played on the 22nd.

Needless to say its a decision that is going down really well with club coaches and managers across the country. As one (who wished to remain anonymous - and incidentally doesn't that desire for anonymity when making even mild criticism say so much?) said:

"We have fixtures arranged, and non regional girls looking forward to a game, but now they have to wait another three weeks to play... This is [being done] just to justify the £75 fee"

Many defend the current regional system, seeing it as the first step of the elite rugby, bringing the best players together - so maybe I could explain the problem using the statistics recently unearthed from the IRB. 

The fundamental difficulty is that regional rugby is not elite rugby (and, to be fair, RFUW do not claim it is - and indeed it was never intended to be). A true elite programme would take only the top 5% of players, maybe 10% at most. In fact, if you do the maths, you'll find that the boy's county programme - the bottom rung of their elite programme (and therefore comparable to girls regional rugby) does indeed select, on average, roughly the top 5% of players. Such a narrow selection brings the best players together without taking away so many from the clubs that it brings grassroots rugby to a standstill

The girls regional programme, on the other hand, pulls out some 240 or so girls in each age band from a pool of perhaps 1200-1500 active players across the country - so that's nearer to 15-20%. That is not an "elite" - so much so that it is debatable how much truly elite players benefit from it.

But what is not debatable is that the remaining 80+% of girls suffer - and there is a certain irony that a programme designed to give girls more rugby is now stopping girls playing. Yes, in some counties like Hertfordshire officials go to huge lengths to fill the gap by bringing clubs together, but its far from universal (as the above non-Herts coach confirms) or perfect and will not suit everyone. Its a sticking plaster on a wound the game has inflicted on itself. Certainly at club level the impetus is lost - coaches find themselves with four or five week gaps between club fixtures, unable to build a team or work on any problems. And when their one window that they have been building towards is slammed in their face at a week's notice it is to be expected that they and their players might be a shade upset.

Have a county programme  (as we had in Herts this year) that is accessible to virtually all players, and a truly elite (divisional ?) programme by all means - it'd be cheaper for starters! But the strange half-way house that is the current regional programme is neither one thing or the other and causes more harm than good.

Weather threat to Six Nations

The weather is threatening the start of this season's Six Nations.

In Ireland Sunday's fascinating game against France has already been moved from Dublin to Ashbourne RFC (the one in Co Meath, not the one in Derbyshire!) while RFUW are advising that no-one travel to the England game against Italy (and the England A game with Spain) until it is confirmed that it is going ahead. 

No news from Edinburgh - but they have no snow (and none forecast) and bright sunny skies, so at least Scotland v Wales will go ahead.

Quite where this leaves the Women's Six Nations is difficult to predict. As it now follows the men's timetable, it also no longer has a two week gap between each game - so the opportunities to replay games will be limited. This is not a real problem for the men, who play in modern grounds with undersoil heating - things would have to be very severe to cause a postponement at Twickenham. 

Maybe the RFU could invite the women to play there if they are snowed off at London Welsh? Oh look - another flying pig!

SUN(?)DAY .....

It may surprise you (though if you have looked outside recently ........

.......... I doubt it) to learn that there will be not be any Letchworth Girls rugby or training this weekend.

So enjoy a Sunday off (watching the 6 Nations?) and, hopefully, normal service will resume shortly ...... weather permitting, of course!

RFUW clarify rules on Welsh teams... but doesn't explain Gloucester ban

After some discussion on the RFUW forum, which in turn arose out of the posting here last month, which says that teams from Wales (and other "foreign" Unions) can take part in English club tournaments so long as a few basic rules are followed:

• The appropriate permissions have been received by either the RFUW or Leisure Rugby Department for the tournament to be held PRIOR to invitations to teams being made.
  
• That the tournament is being run by clubs that are affiliated to the RFUW.
  
• That the tournament is played under RFUW regulations and age bands.
  

One small matter of note is that this seems to imply that anyone running any tournament (a term that is not defined - is a triangular a tournament?) must seek permission from RFUW and/or the RFU Leisure Rugby Department beforehand. This is new - I've certainly never seen that as a requirement before.

However, it also does not explain in any way the RFUW ban on Welsh teams at Gloucester. The simple truth is that Gloucester Girls Rugby did not send out any invitations to anyone until last month after permission was given. So all the above rules were followed - but still Welsh teams are not allowed at Gloucester.

Lisa from GGR has produced a long reply on the forum detailing all that has gone on which deserves repeating here, not least because the rather "unique" (ie. out-of-date) nature of the forum software makes it difficult to read as its strips out all formatting. However, it is also the most detailed account of matters that has thus far reached the public domain:

Dear RFUW, 

Some useful positive feedback. 

1) Perhaps place some procedures on the RFUW NGB website about cross border playing as the current information only details the "laws" and states "matches have to be reported", suggesting no application before a match is required to gain permission to play, just as long as the results are reported using "RFUW Match Report Forms" - not that this matters in this instance over the much pressed Gloucester City 10s event. 

2) Perhaps also help respond to event application forms in 2 days rather than 3 months

3) Actually thoroughly read application forms (the first sent 09/09/08 clearly stated Wales had been indicated by the acronym "WRFU" and "SRFU" too just in case!) 

4) Perhaps pick up the phone and talk to volunteers, telephone numbers are listed in Table 2 of the RFU event application forms 

5) Maybe observe name changes on forms (National to Local on second application sent on 02/01/09 )

6) Perhaps speak to the organisor of an event over issues (and inside the country) before going outside to get facts correct, and in this case before speaking to the Elite Manager at WRFU - (your emailed and stated "counterpart"), who was nothing to do with Community Rugby, and who would have advised you that her colleague and the Welsh Community Manager responsible for community rugby representing WRFU had emailed Aug 08 and advertised to her clubs that they could enter the event

7) Do whats best for the children and the game. 

An attempt to cover tracks through publishing new procedures, fair enough, but the fact is that permission was requested, and refused, refused, refused and refused and consequently invites have only now been sent to 17 out of 42 registered interested clubs. Yes, I repeat, now a decision has been received, invites have now just been sent. (Just as one would not organise an event without first ascertaining the interest in it, nor would one wish to cancel an event with much interest). 

So 120 Welsh players registered interest to play, supported by their NGB. What would make RFUW so adamant that they should not allow them to play when actually procedures old and new were followed? Copies of last years emails from WRFU, of RFU Leisure Event Application emails with 2x application forms available upon request. 

Irrelevant of procedures, negotiations, conversations, emails and forum chats -the fact is, somewhere, someone has made the ultimate decision to exclude 120 children - irrespective of what, when, who, where or how - they should be playing rugby and all of us have failed them. 

I feel ashamed of this decision (if no one else does). We can all masquerade failings in procedures and excuses, all of us should be concerned and certainly the IRB should be very concerned. The Government and charities are ploughing millions into health strategies and campaigns to get kids into sport. 

Hopefully more than 3 clubs will attend the RFUW Board AGM, (and request to move the meeting if it is inconveniently planned next time). Reading the forums, there are plenty of agenda items to help our professionals focus on more productive outcomes - perhaps to help to promote, encourage and inspire volunteers and players. I would like to suggest the need for a "National Community Manager for Volunteers" who focuses on communication with volunteers and for the grassroots game and club development, (which would help fund the elite game through greater numbers) and to prevent just a focus of the elite Player Pathways for the very special few. 

Yours in great expectations. 

Lisa Holmyard 

RFU Leadership Academy. 

I think we all now await the RFUW's response to this with considerable interest. If there is one. After all, the tournament is not until April so there is time yet for a change of heart.

Spot the mistake

Anyone spot anything wrong with this shirt, on sale from the RFU Shop?

Its the latest Lions shirt -moreover their "Home Shirt"

But I can't help thinking that its not going to be a design we'll see very much - after all when did the Lions last play a home game?

Beds for Canadians: still a few more wanted

On a happier note, in about five or six weeks time the Yetis from Canada are due this way. The exact nature of our meeting with them is still being sorted out by Heather, Kettering, et al - but one thing we still need from YOU is beds. We are covered for about three-quarters of the party, but sleeping positions for another four of five girls are still needed.

Don't assume someone else will step forward - we need YOU! If you have the space, volunteer now - its only two nights! All the fun of a full international cultural exchange without having to leave your own home!

Official: Our worst winter ever

Training cancelled tonight, and needless to say any rugby at the weekend doubtful at best.

This officially makes it our worst winter since we began (ie. more or less exactly six years ago). Unless I am mistaken, on no previous winter have we ever lost more than one or maybe two training sessions in the entire season due to the weather - even the pressence of small amounts of snow has not stopped things before - but this winter...

The science of the rugby tackle

I'm not entirely sure what is being proved here, other than being hit by a front row can be painful. Still, thought you all might enjoy it...

American footballer tries rugby

Not women's or girls' rugby this, but nonetheless an interesing item about someone who plays professional American Football coming over to play rugby - apparently as part of a US TV programme. Seems Dhani Jones is something of a star in the US.

Shock! Horror! BBC acknowledge the existance of women's rugby!

The BBC have actually published a preview of the Six Nations! Or should that be the English Broadcasting Corporation, being as its just ever so slightly biased towards one of the four home nations? It is also more-or-less a straight lift from the RFUW's press release, which doesn't say very much for the BBC's journalistic standards (or knowledge of the subject, or both). There is a preview of the Welsh challenge as well, but its buried away on BBC Wales' pages. You'd have thought that a preview of the tournament that covered every nation would not be impossible. Still better than nothing!

I wonder if this means that the BBC have now changed its tune and will take the tournament seriously by, oh I don't know, publishing results and match reports of the games? Or giving women's rugby its own Internet page (like football and cricket get)?

Oink, flap, oink, flap...

Getting your priorities... wrong

Given the forecast is not great, RFUW have come up with a detailed plan for deciding when and whether the weekend's regional games will go ahead or not. Essentially decisions will be made by Friday lunchtime at the latest, and will look at both ground conditions and possible travel problems.

This is all very commendable except for one tiny little point. Well, two really - the first might be to ask why no published contingency plan was already in place (bad weather in February being not unheard of) - but the main point is that the games concerned are not to be cancelled (as would seem unfortunate, but sensible, in a crowded calendar), merely postponed. They will be rearranged.

But not (as you might reasonably expect) in place of one of the regional training afternoons. Oh no - they will be rearranged for (in the case of the junior fixtures) the following weekend - that is the only weekend set aside in the calendar for club rugby in the entire month of February, and one of only three weekends made available to clubs between regional trials at the start of January and the end of March!

Yes - I know clubs can work together to put on festivals etc. etc. on regional days, which we do (or try to!) - but that only works if you have a few weeks notice. Last minute changes like this can and will only result in fixture cancellations and therefore hundreds of girls sitting at home NOT playing just so that a small elite can play warm-up games of no importance (after all its not the only warm-up fixture, and it has no effect on the festival).

But it doesn't end there. Oh no. Guess when the senior game would be moved to? I'll give you a clue - when did I say yesterday that Hitchin had their crucial make-or-break league game? Yes -that weekend. No content with mucking up the junior club season, the climax to the senior club season is also threatened. Okay, there are no Hitchin players in the regional squad (unless you count Hayley) but there will be clubs who are affected. Now I grant you that the senior regional game is important - it is one of three fixtures that will decide who qualifies for the championship final in March - but a cancellation of a fixture is one of those things that happen in sport - its tough but it happens, and its not as if the selection of the two teams (from 11) to make the final based on just three games isn't a bit of a lottery anyway!

As a final shot its interesting to look at why RFUW are in this pickle - why last minute rearrangements have to be squeezed in to a suffocatingly tight timetable. Could it be because RFUW imposed this straight-jacket on themselves by coming up with this concentrated regional season, instead of spreading things out as in previous seasons? The words "hoist" and "petard" might be appropriate if it were not for the fact that it is the clubs that are being hoisted on the RFUW's petard.

And before anyone asks what else could RFUW do and how else could they fit the season together, I think I covered that last August, but in short... regional rugby is unnecessary. It is a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist anymore - in most parts of the country a season-long county programme would be just as effective while imposing much less of a pressure on the calendar. Sometimes less is more.

Meanwhile at a nearby women's team...

Those of you who went along to Hitchin a couple of weeks ago may be interested to know how our nearest women's team are getting on in their promotion battle (especially as the RFU seem to have forgotten to add any women's results to their database for the past week or so. Strange - all the men's results seem up-to-date...).

Basically they are now top of the league... but far from certain of promotion. Two weeks ago Hitchin Ladies ran out 44-10 winners over bottom place Slough, but last weekend crashed 25-15 to Marlow - mainly as a result, it seems, of indiscipline. It seems they kept arguing with the ref, found themselves marched 40 metres down the field,  and carried on arguing as Marlow took the chance to score. Then (incredibly) they did it again - and that 10 point margin was the difference between the teams! (I don't know... adults today... no respect for authority...I bet it was that Rachel...). 

Anyway - with two games to go the table looks something like this (3 points for a win, 2 for a draw, 1 for a defeat - plus the usual bonuses - I think):

Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	Diff	B	Pts
Hitchin	6	4	0	2	152	69	103	3	17
Marlow	4	4	0	0	97	30	67	3	14
Kilburn	5	3	0	2	89	96	-7	3	14
Tabard	6	1	0	5	10	97	-87	4	12
Slough	3	0	0	3	15	81	-66	0	3

Hitchin's two remaining games are against Slough (15th February) and Marlow (22nd). The latter looks like the "big one", so if you aren't intending to go to the county day in Kent that Sunday maybe you could go along and give your possible future teammates a cheer!

Other remaining fixtures: 

8 February: Marlow v Tabard

8 March: Slough v Marlow

29 March: Slough v Kilburn

TBA: Kilburn v Marlow

Always look on the bright side...

First the good news. You won't have to travel as far as you thought on Sunday!

On the downside this means that - due to their pitches being a muddy morass, illness, injury, and regional selections - Jimmies have had to call off Sunday's game. BUT do not despair because Heather and Saracens and others are trying to rearrange last Sunday's cancelled "festival" to this weekend... and it might even be at Letchworth!

Of course this does rather depend on whether or not we have a pitch on Sunday, as opposed to a scene from Scott of the Antarctic...

Six Nations Round 1: all eyes on Dublin

The Six Nations starts this weekend (well, weather permitting). Unfortunately 99.99% of the media will (as usual) be concentrating exclusively on some obscure men's tournament, which is a great pity as this year there is more at stake than the question of England's almost inevitable march to a fourth successive Grand Slam. The more important question this year is actually who finishes fourth - finish below that and you risk not qualifying for next year's World Cup!

Needless to say this will not be a concern for England who begin their campaign with a game against Italy at London Welsh on Saturday. England coach Gary Street announced his squad today and attempted to build up the Italians as if they were some sort of threat. 

Quite why England women's rugby officials always do this before any game (regardless of the opponents) is difficult to understand (did no-one ever tell them the story about the child who called "wolf"?), and in the case of Italy it is particularly laughable. Only six weeks ago England's second team were comfortable 20-0 winners over Italy - moreover on practically the same ground, and in similar weather conditions. In their six previous internationals England have never scored less than 23 and average over 50 points per game. The most Italy have ever scored against England is 11. Even without most of the players who are preparing for the Sevens an England win by less than 40 points would be a cause for some concern - especially with the XVs World Cup round the corner. 

Elsewhere on Sunday Wales should have few problems making it five successive wins over Scotland when they meet in Edinburgh. Scotland were more fortunate with their preparations - which saw them beat Sweden comfortably (32-0) three weeks ago - while Wales' warm-up game with Nomads was called off. However, Wales are ranked number 2 in Europe now - and Scotland rank below even Italy.

However, the "big" game of the weekend must be Saturday's game in Dublin between Ireland and France.  Ireland have never beaten France in 15 previous meetings, but - based on performances over the past year - must start as favourites. When England said that they see Ireland as their greatest threat this season is was (for once) not all hype - the performance of Ireland's "President's XV" against a full strength England team in December was very impressive indeed - all the more so with several leading Irish players were absent. France, on the other hand, have been pretty awful in recent seasons and appear to have had no significant warm-up for this tournament. The French will also be distracted by the Sevens and may not be at full strength - while they are not going to same San Diego warm-up as England later this month they will be taking part in a tournament in Malaga over the same weekend.

• When looking for information on this sort of thing you occasionally have to venture into foreign language articles, and rely on automatic translation. Most of the time this works reasonably well, but now and again it throws up something odd. One of the best examples of this was Google Translate's version of the French Sevens squad which turned Rennes' fly-half Sandrine Agricole into Agricultural Sandrine...!

National 7s safe: latest draft of RFUW calendar

After seeing the draft of next season's calendar, unearthed by Devon, I contacted RFUW to check on the one rather glaring absence - the National 7s.

The good news is that, as suspected, the National 7s was missing from Devon draft as that version had the fixtures for May missing. The latest complete, official, draft - including May - can be found here.

The only significant change is the addition of three weeks of Junior Super League from the end of the Regional programme to the middle of May - or, in other words, a further three week extension to elite season - which means that clubs with elite players will find it close to impossible to consistently field a full strength team between Christmas and the middle of May, a fact that will make running any form of meaningful club league an interesting challenge.

Tweet, tweet

Anyone out there into Twitter at all? Just wondered as I've set up an account on it. This automatically adds a link to any posts appearing on here, plus other short messages. Twitter can be updated via text which means that short, urgent, messages can be posted on here (well, in a box to the left) via RSS (if you want to use the same feed yourself try this). 

How useful this will be I'm not entirely sure, but one of two other clubs have started to use it - including Denise Hodge (Devon, South West South, and driving force behind the innovative South West League) and Steve Watkins (Worcester and Worcestershire) - so clearly it is seen by some as a potentially valuable tool.

Best laid plans...

As you will now know, all rugby cancelled again today - not only the "festival" at OAs but also the regional training, for both juniors and seniors. 

Next weekend SHOULD see a trip up to Jimmies, or regional games for our regional players (assuming selection, which may be a tricky task for the as they have not trained yet, and the juniors have only got together once!). Assuming the weather and ground conditions improve...