The changes made at the top of English women’s rugby come as a considerable surprise.
Charlie Hayter, best known as a 7s international and subsequently coach, takes on a quite mammoth brief.
He is put in charge of the women’s 15s game at international and domestic level as well as the men’s and women’s England 7s programmes. How does he fit all that in?
There was widespread disbelief when the Wales RU sought a person to take over responsibility for both the 7s and 15s programmes, but this job is on an infinitely larger scale. The RFU’s new structure introduces an unfortunate balance between the men’s and women’s games: for Hayter, responsibility for men and women in 7s (his speciality), but only women in 15s. A strange conglomeration.
And he, lucky man, takes on overall charge of the Allianz Premier 15s programme. I have been mulling over my thoughts on future paths for the AP 15s for a long time now, so complex and far-reaching are the consequences. I have not yet been brave enough to make my thoughts public. Hayter will have to familiarise himself fast with the 15s game after a lengthy absence.
Presumably it will be he who has to make the final decisions for the leading club league in world rugby, just as it is faced with quite massive concerns, for example: further professionalisation? relegation and promotion? size of the league? response to three Gallagher Premiership clubs wanting a piece of the action?
He will have help from Amy Walmsley, Allianz Premier 15s Strategic and Operations Manager, who has been covering for Amy Kimber-Roberts, who is on maternity leave. Walmsley is supported in turn by an Allianz Premier 15s Operations Executive.
The appointments are in line with the RFU’s ‘Every Rose 2021-2027’ action plan for women’s rugby. They come at a time when the men’s game is seeing further worrying falls in playing numbers.
Supporting him as Performance Consultant in the women’s game comes a welcome figure, Emma Mitchell. She is one of England’s distinguished figures from past decades, a captain and a World Cup winner in 1994.
When Nicky Ponsford was seconded to World Rugby for two years, I wondered who would take over her role as Head of Performance for the women’s game. The answer till now has been no-one; or rather Conor O’Shea, hitherto in charge of the men’s sector, doubled his portfolio. Mitchell’s title is slightly different.
Hayter’s availability renews the question of the balance between the 7s and 15s programmes, and within the world of 7s, between the GB and England squads. O’Shea speaks of ‘the repositioning of the sevens programme within the pathway’ It’s high time it was allowed to settle down in one place.
It is only last month that England 7s saw a change of personnel with Hayter as Performance Lead. The women’s squad have the Commonwealth Games to look forward to, enough to keep a man busy. But Hayter now takes on vast new tracts of responsibility which will include the Red Roses’ safe path to a World Cup final in November.
Let’s hope he can adjust to a position that sounds far more desk-bound and committee-bound than the active jobs he had on the playing fields of England.
For those who would prefer to see women taking charge of women’s sport, the appointment represents one more setback
