Some recent Additions
1. Exeter Chiefs’ kit launch will once more take place on the Cathedral Green. Nearer my God to Thee.
2. Rachel Malcolm, Loughborough Lightning’s captain, poses in Northampton Saints colours for their new kit launch.
The photo only deepens the strangeness of LL’s relationship with NS. We will discover this season where their major playing-base will be (surely Franklin’s Gardens) and what colours they will sport (violet and pink or green, black and gold – the former?). Likewise, which colours will the supporters will be wearing – far less certain.
Which leads directly to my next point…
3. Variation in the number of signings: from a complete squad (Ealing Trailfinders) to zero (Lightning, so far as I have been able to detect). This last is truly worrying. They have lost eight players, of who three are Red Roses. And they are the only club to have a new head coach installed.
4. Are Gloucester-Hartpury and Loughborough Lightning essentially rugby nurseries or full-blown club giants?
One of G-H’s brightest young stars, Sophie Bridger, is prepared to leave the champions for the bright lights of London (though they don’t shine quite so brightly in NW4 as in W1). The ten PWR clubs are well stocked with Red Roses who developed their careers at Hartpury and Loughborough, but most of them now turn out for rival clubs.
At least both are now attached to major clubs of long standing.
5. Ireland lose two captains (Ciara Griffin and Nichola Fryday) in quick succession; both before the age of 30. Not my fault, guv.
6. A final thought on the dozens of tween-season transfers: do all the head coaches know from the start which of their recruits will make their starting XV from Round One?
Only a relatively small number of the new faces can feel assured of preferential treatment. You could continue this list quite a distance: Sophie De Goede, Beatrice Rigoni, Meg Jones, Abby Dow…
But that leaves many dozens who must be hoping against hope that they catch the selector’s eye once or twice.
