Back last April I wrote: ‘WRU’s idea of placing its best players in an optimal position is to advise them to cross the Severn Bridge and join an Allianz Premier 15s club. Back at home the structures at club and regional level are inadequate.’
The situation in Wales now becomes more dire.
Ex-international Gemma Hallett (@GemHallett), not known for mincing her words, puts a new gloss on the situation as she hears that Swansea Women’s RFC are closing down.
They could not survive when their test players were told their places were at risk if they did not join a Premier 15s club in England. Their departure has had an inevitable knock-on effect on the membership, so the most successful women’s club in Wales will not compete in the 2021-22 season.
Hallett blasts the Wales Rugby Union with several broadsides.
In her view (shared by many others) the WRU couldn’t care less about the warnings directed at them. Their inability to establish a basic structure for girls’ and women’s rugby was a disgrace.
Another ex-international, Caryl James, speaks of Wales women’s rugby reaching a catastrophic point.
Various past and current members of the WRU board have stated their hopes for its future, including the introduction of contracts. But material advances have not been forthcoming.
A powerful committee of three (Helen Phillips, Amanda Bennett and Kevin Bowring), set up to consider all matters pertaining to women’s rugby in Wales was due to publish its findings at the end of last month (June 2021). They have been delayed.
We can only imagine the reasons.
