Prior to starting up the ladies team for the Saxons 7s, I was firmly of the opinion that the tide had changed and women’s rugby was firmly on the map. Now whilst some might argue that may be the case with the International level of the game to a degree, I don’t think they have considered that all of the women players are still amateurs and are expected to put in more time and effort into the physical conditioning than most male players who receive financial reward at some level. There is still some considerable disparity at that level.

What shocked me when I started the ladies tournaments was just how badly women get treated in rugby. What was even more shocking wasn’t the deliberate nature of it, but actually it was the complete opposite: organisers just didn’t realise what they were doing and how they were treating the ladies.

I saw tournament organisers go out of their way to create experiences for the men, but absolutely no consideration was given for the women. And to be fair, when the women reacted and commented on this the organisers had no idea how their actions were being interpreted and received.

For example, last year the Saxons ladies played in 5 tournaments and there was pretty much an incident of note at every tournament, except at the Surrey 7s, who actually did quite a decent effort. The rest of them are as follows:

Middlesex Club 7s – I still haven’t understood why they behaved the way they did. They knew weeks in advance that they only had 2 teams registered but never informed us that this was the case, then took one of the larger entry fees off us for the privilege and thus prevented us from finding an alternative solution. But they didn’t do this because they were out to annoy or upset the girls, they did it because their mind-set was so fixed on actually holding a women’s tournament they didn’t gauge how disappointed both sides were with what they encountered.

Following that the girls went to play in the Manchester 7s, again there were problems before we left and the tournament the girls were entered into was downgraded. Unfortunately what that then meant was that they then weren’t playing for any prize money. Having said that, when downgrading them to a ‘Social’ tournament what was most interesting was that the Men’s Social did have a financial prize for the tournament winners. Whilst I have a good relationship with the organiser, I still don’t think he realised why the girls got so upset and accused him of hypocrisy when he refused to consider offering them the same prize money and stated that he would consider it for next season. There were other issues at the tournament, such as it is 7s tradition that all Cup Finals get played on the 1st team pitch, and so it was in Manchester for every level of tournament, except the women’s tournament.

At Rugby Rocks the girls played all their matches on the back pitch. Their main grumble was that they wanted to be treated the same as the men and be given the opportunity to play their matches on some of the better pitches at Richmond as opposed to one of the worst (backfield training pitch).

At Nivelles 7s in Brussels, there seemed to be a distinct lack of organisation and it severely impacted our players with the tournament organisers constantly changing the kick off times of each match. The girls were further incensed when they found out that the Manchester 7s and Nivelles 7s were awarding a prize to the men’s team that were best placed across both tournaments – especially when our women were that team in the women’s tournaments. The organiser of the tournament was extremely apologetic and said he had no idea and that the Manchester 7s had only ever discussed the paring with the Men’s tournaments.

This coming year we were looking to take both the men and women to the Las Vegas 7s, but for other issues we would have gone. The problem with Vegas is that there is a $5,000 prize money for the men and $0 for the women. It would have cost me the same to send a men’s team and a women’s team, so why such disparity in reward?

The point I am trying to make this time is that I hope in the coming season I see greater parity between the men and the women’s competitions in terms of prize, because it really does upset the girls and quite often leaves them angry and frustrated with the game as a whole. And more often that not it isn’t being done deliberately. With a little bit more thought and a little bit more effort the girls should be able to enjoy the same benefits that men do. They really are worth it. If we can have parity in sports like tennis why can’t we in rugby at least start making efforts to go that way?

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