Saracens women’s team to work closer with men
We should do a lot more, says club owner Wray Coaching staff will now assist Premier15s side
Saracens have formalised an agreement which will mean their men’s and women’s teams become closely aligned.
Both the men and women won their leagues last season but, despite playing their home games at Allianz Park, Saracens Women were a separate entity to their male counterparts with little crossover.
In the build-up to new Premiership and Premier15s seasons, the transition has been guided by Saracens chairman and owner Nigel Wray.
Wray admitted to The Daily Telegraph that it was a development that should have come sooner.
“We have been slow off the mark and we don’t just have to catch up, we have to get ahead,” he said. “The women have proved that they are really worth backing. And we can’t set ourselves up as a club trying to do things in the community if we are neglecting half the community. In sport we should be doing a lot more.”
One important change is that the women’s programme will now be overseen by Saracens performance director Phil Morrow. This will also involve some of the men’s strength and conditioning staff working with the Premier15s side.
Women’s team head coach Alex Austerberry explained that for many years Saracens was merely a name that the two sides shared with some informal guidance coming from the men before this agreement.
“Looking in, people may have thought there was a real strong link between Saracens Women and the men but it was more of an association with some support of resources,” he said. “But over the last year there has been a building of the relationship and it has been formalised over the past few weeks. We are one and the same now.”
The women’s coaching team will be integrated into the wider Saracens set-up, and a development pathway has been launched to encourage Saracens Women players to fill off-the-pitch roles in the club.
The women, while remaining amateur, will also benefit from sharing the Saracens commercial and media departments but Austerberry believes the extra support in terms of training is key to player welfare. “But most importantly it is to support the players with strength and conditioning and all the infrastructure to allow them to be the best they can be and that they feel fully supported by the club as a whole,” he said.
Harlequins Ladies, who Saracens beat in the inaugural Premier15s final, led the way in terms of integration between the women’s club game and their professional male counterparts last season.
Harlequins developed a strong marketing campaign in which female players such as England veteran Rachael Burford appeared alongside the likes of Chris Robshaw and Mike Brown in kit advertisements. The women also share the Harlequins’ facility at Surrey Sports Park and women’s coaches attended pre-season workshops with director of rugby Paul Gustard. By contrast, Wasps FC Ladies are based in Acton and are linked to the amateur club rather than the Coventry-based professionals. Wray acknowledges that Saracens Women, despite being domestic champions, have to catch up with Quins when it comes to integration and that his daughter Lucy, a former Wales lacrosse international, has given him a perspective on the challenges women’s sport faces. “Having a daughter who played at international level, I should have been quicker. But I get it now. We haven’t been as quick as Harlequins, but we did win the league and now we have to get to the front of the train,” he said. “Where the women’s game has immense possibilities, and I am being slightly cynical, is that there isn’t a company in the land that doesn’t want to have a community programme. People want to know not just if a company is making a profit but what does it stand for? There are a lot of companies who have neglected women’s sport and women’s development, so I think there is an area to tap into massively.”
Marlie Packer, the 2014 World Cup winner who joined Saracens last season, believes integration is key in attracting players as the league becomes more competitive and for legitimising the women’s game. “Women who are playing for these clubs now, it isn’t because you live close by, it is because they offer you something that other clubs don’t,” she said. “When started playing men and women were completely separate but this change shows the legacy women’s rugby is building.’’ I