Fan girling at the Rugby World Cup 2017 in Ireland.

It’s taken a while for me to form an objective detachment rather than an emotive rose-tinted view of my time playing in Welsh club, regional and international rugby in order to be able to write this article. Given the growing interest and concern in the women’s rugby game, the time is right to share how I believe the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) has failed its women players.

There’s no doubt that the girls playing in this year’s Six Nations tournament (and every campaign before it) have done so with utter commitment, professionalism and a total desire to perform and win. Unfortunately, these players are a product of their current environment developed by the WRU and the environment has failed them.

Even before they take the field and give 100% as individuals, the inept leadership of the WRU and the decimated pathway orchestrated by its officials means they have already lost. Before diving in, please keep in mind that the teams results are undeniably a strategic and leadership failure and not a player failure. The players have given everything in the most challenging of circumstances and it is for them that we must hold the WRU to account and must again #BackTheGirls.

Perspective

In 2008, the Welsh Women’s Rugby Union (WWRU) was moved from being an associate member of the WRU run by its own executive committee to be embedded fully into the Union. This was described as an ‘important step forward for women’s rugby in Wales’ by the outgoing WWRU manager Jilly Holroyd. We, the players, really believed it was and we were excited and proud of this development. We were being embraced by our Union which is the custodians of the game we love. We were about to play in the same coveted kit as the men, get the same hoard of Under Armour stash, train at the same National Centre of Excellence and stay at the Vale of Glamorgan Hotel (though just for the one season). We were moving, or so we thought, towards a promising future that would gain equality, grow the game and raise standards.

The WRU were getting a pretty good deal too and strong-armed by the recommendations of Sport Wales and the IRB (World Rugby), they inherited not just a women’s team but a development team, a sevens team, an under 20s squad, a strong regional programme, an under 19s regional programme and a league where a majority of the women internationals played here in Wales.

A dream inheritance

It wasn’t all perfect but it was a pathway that was starting to bear fruit. For example, the test team and mid-week development team that toured South Africa in 2004 remain the only Welsh squad to win a test series away to the Springboks. In 2006, the Rugby Sevens team beat England in the final of the FIRA Top Tier Tournament and by 2008, we were finalists in the European 15s championships losing narrowly to England in the final and beating France along the way. In 2009, we bagged a Six Nations Triple Crown losing only to France and beating England for the first time.

This position was handed over to the WRU with a strategic plan that, according to Jilly Holroyd, would be “a fundamental step in the Welsh Women’s Rugby Union’s development as a modern, professionally-run organisation. We all now have a basis from which to work and long term targets to strive towards.” Whilst this sounded like a great foundation on which to build the women’s game in Wales and push forward, what followed was a series of inadequate strategic leadership decisions and the decimation of this foundation by design. This ultimately led to the situation that the national women’s rugby team find themselves in, a poignant time of reflection with Wales losing heavily to both France and England. Where we were once so close, we are now worlds apart from other women’s rugby teams and here is why.

Decimated in a Decade

Soon after the integration into the WRU, the development team was scrapped, the under 20s played their last game (the members of that squad are starting to turn 30 now!) the Rugby Sevens team were failed and the regional and Premiership structure are largely ignored.

Regional rugby

The regional programme looked promising with an affiliation with the men’s regions and we were even lucky enough to wear their old hand-me-down kits. In 2013, we were allowed to play at the Cardiff Arms Park thanks to coach Nadine Griffiths pushing for it, but the programme has since reverted to playing on training grounds or smaller clubs.

Lack of numbers became a huge issue with training numbers sometimes as low as six in attendance. In addition, Canadians playing club rugby here were able to walk straight into a regional starting position after one indoor boxing session (yep, you read that right, they didn’t even touch a ball.) As talented as they were, this was enormously embarrassing and illustrated the failures of providing an elite pathway with any kind of integrity. Is it any wonder that players prefer to attend club training in England over Welsh regional training?

Despite this, full credit must be given to both the Scarlets and RGC who have really embraced their women’s sections and could, by example, lift the whole programme across Wales. However, with regional rugby being run by the ‘community’ element of the game, rather than ‘performance’ focused governance, it is not fulfilling the Welsh players’ needed to reach international readiness.

Under 18s

Whilst there have been spats of Under 18s international fixture list here and there, this week is the anniversary of the last regional fixture. With a whole year gone, it is not surprising that those girls and their talent are increasingly lost to other sports where they can represent and compete for their county, region or country.

Rugby Sevens

In 2013, the global buzz of Rugby Sevens becoming the game almost saw us lose our 15s team altogether but there was no structure in place and far too much resistance. Seven years later and whilst the WRU has well and truly missed the curve on this one, they still dither and talk of targeting a World Series position. I’ll not pretend to be the expert here but this is ‘laughable’ according to former Rugby Sevens players based on the current inconsistency of participation and competition.

Premiership

The WWRU managed the Welsh club scene closely and new teams were capped to avoid dilution of local talent pool. By mismanaging the community game, the WRU has allowed any club to start a team and a result, many are in direct geographical competition with established clubs. Whilst it is an unpopular opinion and though I can respect that women want to play for their local club, if you can’t create a team with 30 committed players without diluting another club, it shouldn’t be allowed. The Premiership — which should be the showpiece of women’s game — has had no investment and just two teams dominate the league.

Reliant on Volunteers

The above has essentially been run by volunteers with paid WRU employees still leaning on unpaid club members to organise tournaments and cluster/hub events to achieve WRU objectives and KPIs. For an organisation with a turnover of £97m which claims that a record £42.8m has been reinvested across the game in Wales this is disconcerting and I’d love to see what loose change they threw towards the ‘little ladies having a go’. Is that how the WRU perceive women and girls in the game? I don’t know for sure but I do know that the Union is inherently an old boys club and the issues are well rooted and start at the top.

A top down issue

A quick analysis of executive boards illustrates just how strong an old boys club it still is: the WRU Board- twelve white men and two women; the Executive Board- eight white men and one woman; the Professional Board- ten white men and one woman.; the WRU Council- eighteen men and one woman. It is also worth noting that those five female positions are held by just three women.

We experienced this patriarchy head-on in 2013 when player representatives went head to head with WRU executives and managers to keep Wales in the 6 Nations as they wanted to withdraw us and concentrate on sevens rugby. Joe Lydon- then WRU Head of Rugby- told us with a flippant arrogance that there was no future for the women’s game, that the women’s game doesn’t make the WRU any money and there was no interest in supporting us. His view and the behaviour of those sat in that room told us everything we knew and feared about our place in the WRU. Anyway, we got over it and pushed on, #BackTheGirls was born, Joe Lydon soon left his post and the women’s game remains in place so I think we won that one.

The opportunity

The last decade has all but decimated the elite level of our game but there is some good news and a real opportunity for the likes of Ryan Jones, the WRU Director of Performance, to embrace and capitalise on the foundations laid in the community game and change the current trajectory of our national team.

In 2015, Caroline Spanton (the then WRU National Women’s Rugby Manager) brought structure from the Under 9s to senior Women’s community rugby. With this legacy, there has been a huge growth in schools and hubs (from 170 to 10,000 girls participating in just three years) and a massive talent pool is emerging. However, it is now up to the WRU to provide a performance pathway for this talent, there’s no more hiding place and they can no longer dismiss the Women’s game as being of little importance. With international women’s rugby games now televised and a growing media coverage addressing the pathway and performance gaps in the union, a nation is watching.

As the community game continues its growth, more mams and dads are drawn to our game with their rugby playing daughters. As a result, all eyes are now on Ryan Jones and whether he will lead with optimism and provide a clear pathway for Welsh women’s rugby players into a new decade of performance and growth. Along with many others, I can only hope that he will leave his own legacy and become the true custodian of the women’s game in Wales, one our rugby loving nation of female players and their supporters need and deserve.

.

About the author

Gemma earned 35 caps for Wales and represented at Six Nations, World Cup and European Championship tournaments. A one club player, having played for Pontyclun Falcons at Pontyclun RFC for 13 years, taking sabbatical seasons for Easts Rugby Club, Sydney, Australia and Stoke Rugby Club, New Zealand. She represented Cardiff Blues at Regional level and also coached Welsh Colleges Girls Rugby at five successive British Championships, and the Pontyclun Falcons not so well.