“The revolution is delayed. But it must come soon”
The Women’s Six Nations – and women’s game as a whole – needs a revamp, argues Stephen Jones. Here he lays out his plans f or r ef or m
JUST WHEN we needed calm and vision, we got Covid-19 and confusion. This should have been a period when those in charge of women’s elite rugby were laying down an alluring future in tablets of stone. Instead, there is sheer frustration.
One of the keys would have been the future shape of the
Six Nations, which has been struggling in key areas for some time and which really now should be looking to divorce from the men’s tournament and boost its own separate future. The great Danielle Waterman, now retired from rugby in favour of her burgeoning broadcasting career and coaching, believes there are some major issues to fix. In passing, it is preposterous that neither Waterman nor any of the great players have yet been asked to sit on a formal forward-planning committee.
“We have to be consistent; we have to work out what does work and what does not work,” says Waterman. “What do we want the Six Nations to be and do we really want to be competing in the same space as the men?”
How true. But in any case, we are not even at that stage of the debate on this or any other issue in women’s international rugby, let alone concluding anything.
We can and must blame Covid-19, of course, but in some ways the virus is a smokescreen. The pace and lack of vision of the old Six Nations committee
was dreadful, so too the way too much lip service was paid to the aspirations of the elite players.
I’m not sure whether this observation would come under the heading of reverse-sexism, but I would dearly love many of the calls for the future, whenever they are made, to be made by people inside the women’s game.
Everything is at panic stations across life and sport; sometimes you wonder if forms of normality will ever return, let alone whether the revolution that is needed will come into the game.
Yet this is also the time when all 12 teams taking part in the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand next September and October should be stepping up their preparations and planning meticulously the next 11 months.
Indeed, we should now be planning RWC 2025, returning it to Europe after what is sure to be an excellent hosting by New Zealand, and by then there should definitely be 16 teams involved.
It was disappointing that the entry for 2021 has stayed at 12 but in five years’ time the case for 16 should be utterly overwhelming due to international development amongst the next generation of players and the next rank of women’s Test teams. For example, Fiji’s progress is illustrated by the fact that the union recently opened a high-performance women’s academy.
Back to 2021. Are the 12 teams all ready? Nope. While we know nine of the teams that will compete in New Zealand, including England and Wales, others aspiring to the finals are nowhere near.
Poor old Spain, one of the most promising emerging teams, could face as many as eight more games if they are to qualify. Ireland could face six, in various events. The schedule is so crammed that the delayed Six Nations match between Italy and Scotland now taking place in early December will double up as a World Cup qualifier.
In a torrent of games to come towards the end of this year that is a very rare shortcut. As our panel below shows, there remain six matches to play in the Six Nations, and England are also due to play France in two Tests in November, one of which will be a double header with the men at Twickenham.
At the end of this month, the Rugby Europe Championship also reaches its delayed conclusion as Spain host Russia and the promising Netherlands. The winners from that trio will then enter a regional round-robin qualifying tournament with Ireland, Italy and Scotland. The winners of that go directly to the World Cup while the runners-up enter a final eliminator. My goodness, whoever does make it to New Zealand will have earned it the hard way.
But when we do know the teams, let us also hope and pray that funding can be found so that they can prepare like elite athletes, not also-rans.
We are still not getting women’s international rugby right. Even the Super Series in America last year – involving the elite of Canada, England, France, New Zealand and the USA – came across on TV like a park-pitch affair, most notably when the poor television match official was trying to make a call
on an offside from the single camera apparently stationed on the relevant side of the field. It had to be a wild guess and that is palpably not good enough at the highest level.
Back to the Six Nations. Forget mimicking the men’s programme, forget sorting out the fixture schedule by shunting the women into timing extremities. Sunday, for most parts of rugby, is a morgue of a day for a start.
In contrast, two Friday night games against Ireland stand out for Waterman. “I loved playing against Ireland because they always try to play against us rather than to stop us,” she says. ”There was one great game in Dublin and another at the Ricoh stadium in Coventry. Both were crazy Friday evenings; they were crowded, with crazy weather, and they were great occasions.”
She is not saying that the whole sport should revert to Fridays. It is just that the organisers and the marketeers should identify the best time for their own team.
Perhaps Friday evening is the best if you play the women’s match in the same town as the men’s game – there will be thousands of visiting fans around. Or you go to proven and teeming venues that have shown the ability to stage women’s Internationals properly and successfully. Exeter comes to mind, after 10,000 supporters headed to Sandy Park for England’s Six Nations match against Italy in 2019, and so do other places where there is passion – the Ricoh and Kingsholm.
With Sale Sharks now launching their own team in the Premier 15s, perhaps they could join the party at international time with a match in Salford. What about reviving Brighton as a rugby venue after the roaring success of having men’s World Cup matches there in 2015. As I say, any time and any venue that is proven to be attractive to the paying public and to all branches of the media.
What about Twickenham? Clearly, for emerging players to be out there wearing the Red Rose is stupendous.
But is that the panacea for everything? Waterman does not believe so. “It is a fantastic honour to play at Twickenham, but unless we can play before the men’s match and not after, then I would rather play elsewhere,” she says.
Strong words, but there is something deflating about watching the girls give it everything hours after the men’s game, often in a dark, cold and mostly-deserted stadium. Twickenham can be inspiring but it can also, occasionally, be gaunt and spooky. It’s great to see that England’s home fixture against France next month will be played at noon before the men take on Ireland. More please.
Also, with so many matches now available on various forms of broadcast, is there any excuse for having them kick off at the same time? The opening
Forget mimicking the men’s Six Nations, forget shunting the women into timing extremities
round of this year’s Six Nations saw all three women’s Internationals kick off within half an hour of each other on a Sunday lunchtime, so the real aficionados had to miss much of the action. Even the rearranged dates have clashes.
There is an opportunity here for an impresario, or at least a visionary marketeer, and for creativity from different broadcast platforms and different sponsors to ensure matches garner as much exposure as possible.
“These days there is so much information available. Newspapers know exactly who reads the papers digitally and how long they dwell on the articles,” Waterman says. “There must be so much information available on women’s rugby to marketing companies, so many intelligent ways to promote rather than keeping the blinkers on and doing everything the same as ever.”
There is also a disturbing fracture in the Six Nations. England have been running a full-time professional squad since 2019 while France’s players are semi-pro, and each country has an absolutely excellent club league.
But this has put France and England way ahead, and the fact they met in
the first match of this Six Nations meant we knew the Red Roses, victors that day, would lift the title after 80 minutes of a 15-game tournament, albeit they’re having to wait a few extra months to complete a Grand Slam due to Covid.
Wales, who have qualified for 2021 in New Zealand after a fine performance at the 2017 World Cup, are struggling. Their development system is not working well; they seem to have an awful lot of capped players but very few hard-nosed Test players. A shame considering the enthusiasm and effort the players put in.
Ireland lost momentum on the back of a poor campaign by their standards at a home World Cup. There was evidence that not all was well in camp, but they have an excellent provincial competition and are likely to come back strongly. Italy are also improving and Scotland, bless them, are desperate to improve.
But the fact is that there are too many huge margins and too many foregone conclusions. For England to beat Wales by 60 points this year when fielding a much-changed side does no one any good. Even home advantage can’t stop an avalanche from the big two – France beat Wales 50-0 in Cardiff, England thumped Scotland 53-0 in Edinburgh.
So what can be done? Here’s my plan. England, France and Ireland break off as Division One, playing each other home and away in an annual six-match series. I cannot see a landslide of points against Ireland playing in Dublin.
In Division Two you have Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, Scotland, Spain and Wales, where each nation would be picking on someone their own size. Then the bottom team of Division One could play off against the top team of Division Two. The confidence of victory for the second-tier team going into the promotion play-off would surely improve them and draw attention to them.
You can already hear the old guard at some of the unions aghast that their own darling team should be effectively relegated but this is now 2020, things must change, nothing should remain the same until it’s been rigorously examined.
Waterman’s view on the Six Nations is different. “It should all stay together and the other teams could possibly learn a few lessons about where they could go if they are prepared to put in the same investment England and France have.”
On the other hand, she is tired of the fact England appear to make a raft of changes for every game. “When I came into the team I was sandwiched between great players and that is how it should be done. When you keep throwing in 15 new players it is hard for them to express themselves individually.”
The pressure is now very much on the game’s administration to take
“Other teams could learn a few lessons about where they could go if they’re prepared to invest”
international rugby for women way more seriously. It is time that better facilities and better backdrops and even a few cameras for the TMO were guaranteed, along with other strict minimum standards for every Test. Games should be taken where intelligent thinking deems, where they will be most raucously supported and telecast.
And here is a great way to start. World Rugby, whose intentions are honourable and who do have visions for the future, have instituted a system in which promising female coaches can be part of the back-room team of each nation preparing for New Zealand 2021, with a view to having a large number of women’s coaches in charge by 2025.
It might sound token but it is a brilliant idea. I simply cannot accept the thought that England will not have a female coach after the next World Cup and with apologies to the coaches at Harlequins and Saracens, there is no better, more wise, more intense or more visionary a coach anywhere in rugby than Giselle Mather at Wasps.
The day the top teams run out to do battle having been prepared by members of their own sex will be something worth celebrating.
At the moment, progress depends largely on the selfless energy of the top players. Themselves. They deserve support and respect and funding.
The revolution is on hold. But for the Six Nations and the World Cup and the elite level of the sport around the world, it must not be long delayed.