“As much as I love playing rugby, I love being the Captain, and holding the team together, helping them focus…... I love how proud I feel when we walk on and off the pitch together.”
These aren’t the words of Sam Warburton or Rachel Taylor. These are the words of Alex Elizabeth Evans an 8-year-old girl from North Wales.
Countless headlines are given over to lamenting the state of the UK youth. Their over dependence on video games, and fizzy drinks, their imbalanced diet or their attitudes to peers and elders. It can make for bleak reading.
But every Weekend throughout Wales tens of thousands of school age children are out in the fresh air playing rugby for their school, their local club but most importantly for fun.
For me, the fact that an increasing number of these are girls, is an inspiring change. On the morning of the Six Nations, one of the biggest events in the sporting calendar, it is worth reflecting on and celebrating the state of the women’s and girl’s game in Wales.
Anybody that stands on the touchline at the weekend cannot fail to have noticed the swell in numbers as girls and women of all ages begin to think of rugby as something that really can be ‘for them’.
And I feel that things are still on the up: from April this year, girls will be able to play girls only mini and ingusan rugby in schools and in their communities in a format that suits the way they want to play.
Our School Hub Officers and our new Cluster Rugby Centres will offer a friendly and welcoming environment to encourage girls from Under 9s through to U15s to play rugby during school, outside of school time, in the evenings and at weekends.
Recent changes in the way we organise the season, enabling girls to play in Spring rather than the bleaker Winter months; giving them the option to play girls only or mixed and enabling them to play the format which suits them be it tag, touch, 7’s of 15’s should have a further positive impact on grass roots level participation.
Support for the women’s game comes from the top down too with recently appointed WRU CEO Martyn Phillips providing vocal support for the women’s game and demonstrating an early willingness to put it in the spotlight alongside the men’s. The chances of participation figures at a grass roots level fundamentally changing for the better were given a further boost with the announcement that former Welsh captain and British and Irish Lion Ryan Jones will join our team later this month as Head of Participation.
Ryan’s credentials as a player and captain of Wales are obvious, (three Grand Slams and an RBS 6 Nations title, British and Irish Lion). Of more importance to me is his reputation as a role model for players of both sexes, and his desire to roll up his sleeves and to take accountability for growing participation across men’s, women’s and children’s rugby and to look at modernisation for a healthy future for the game. Our Women’s team are increasingly becoming role models in their own right and I’m sure with Ryan alongside they will continue to do a superb job on and off the pitch to inspire the future generations of girls.
So as Rachel Taylor and the team take to the pitch at Donnybrook this weekend it won’t’ just be Irish eyes that are smiling. Welsh women’s and girl’s rugby fans have a lot to be smiling about too.
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